The age of busy has never been more prevalent than the past few weeks. It is not that I have been ‘too busy’ or that things have been cast aside for other matters. Instead, I have experienced other people in the sea of their own preoccupation. I have been witness to the inattention, the complaint, the overwhelm that consumes us all at this time of year.

As an expat who has lived in Germany for nearly two decades, I brace myself anew, come the end of November, for the cultural indifference that Thanksgiving brings when I try to celebrate the holiest of family moments with nary a family member in sight. Reaching out via WhatsApp seems inadequate and although I try to bridge the difference of time and space, I am often left with a vacuous state of aloneness.

That feeling of isolation is intensified by virtual team members who ignore my pleas to meet deadlines, to review time-sensitive materials or to gather a sense of like-mindedness amidst the din of their own importance.

I am angered by the silence, by the disinterest, by the blinded spirit of others’ wants without concern for my own. It is a troubled moment in time, which my Feng Shui consultant has told me comes annually, at the end of the calendar year. It is a span of time in which detritus must make way for new things and as I attempt to match my intellect with my despairing heart, I stretch my willingness for compassion and empathy when what I truly yearn for is a listening ear.

It is a sensitive time, a time of vulnerability and spanned heartbreak. A time of reflection for what is yet to come. And as the ebb and flow of life washes over me like the tides, I am reminded that exactly this state of being is just the beginning. In fact, it is the beginning of everything yet unseen.