Unfixed holidays
Hope is here, not as an expectation or condition, but as an open immediacy with life’s natural unfolding.
Sharing this video again for anyone who might need its message during this season. As the holidays bring both light and shadow, may this resonate as a gentle reminder to honor your unique rhythms and embrace the quiet clarity that darkness can offer.
As the year draws to a close, we might sense a collective sigh—not one of relief, but a shared exhale, a laying down of arms, disappointments, and heaviness. Like trees shedding their leaves to rest under snow and winter rain, this season asks us to let go. To pause. To welcome the darkness as a necessary companion. Hope is here, not as an expectation or condition, but as an open immediacy with life’s natural unfolding.
This natural retreat mirrors much of the Unfixed life and the ways chronic illness draws us into solitude and reflection—experiences often reserved for the later years of life. We’re learning to embrace our own rhythms, question societal expectations, and tend to our deepest longings. This often means our lives look different: slower paces, quieter tables, and calendars free of holiday obligations. Yet, from this silence emerges the clarity of our unique voices.
In the winter of 2021, the Unfixed doc-series cast explored these voices through honest reflection and brave offerings—and watching them again this morning, I’m still madly in love with each and every one of them. The process of listening and sharing transformed us into more inclusive, radiant expressions of what it means to be human.
Thank you, devoted readers, listeners, and viewers, for being present with all I’ve shared this year. Your willingness to sit with stories of uncertainty is an act of radical and necessary compassion. By not turning away from the pain and challenges of adversity, you’ve helped keep alive the inner radiance within all of us, even during the darkest seasons.
So, without further ado, enjoy Our Unfixed Holiday as you settle into your own. True to the diversity of our cast, this video brims with contrasts—merriment and conflict, family and solitude. There’s even a little Elvis impersonation for you.
The honesty and vulnerability of these vignettes are such a gift. Happy holidays to all on their on their own unique terms. :)
You define meaning for the holidays with these videos, Kimberly. Though I don't have a chronic disease, I find the holidays so difficult and share many of the views from your documentary subjects. Quite simply, deeply insightful.