Thank you – and happy new year!
What a perfectly normal and uneventful 2025 everyone's had.
An audio version of this article (narrated by me) is available here:
Phew! What a time to be alive, eh? What a peaceful, chilled out, zen year 2025 was – for everyone. I can’t think of a single person who had something even remotely interesting happen to them. It’s a miracle I found anything to write about. Thank you for sticking with me to read (or listen to) nothing but contentment and mild satisfaction.
ONLY KIDDING! Obviously this year was a total shitshow when it came to global affairs, politics (local and international), and the smashing to pieces of social norms and anything that wasn’t nailed down.
To me, what has set this period apart isn’t only the catalogue of gobsmacking events – from the truly insane (like, say, Elon Musk casually giving a Nazi salute which everyone seems to have forgotten about – NOT ME, ELON) to the downright terrifying (wars! actual global conflicts as well as wars on social progress). No, what really set it apart was the general “it’s the end of days” aura that seems to permeate everything and everyone; the shared sense that we’re all clinging by our fingernails to a cliff-edge made of crumbly cheese.
A couple of weeks ago, my partner and I received a mailout from the Dutch government on how best to prepare for a disaster. I shit you not. Merry fucking Christmas. There’s a double page spread listing what will happen within the first 72 hours of a national shutdown. Spoiler: it’s not great. Basically, if you don’t have a personal bomb-shelter (like everyone in Switzerland apparently does?!), an old-school radio and a paper map, you’re screwed. (And we all used to laugh at the doomsday preppers with their go-bags. Who’s laughing now?)
So, for 2026 I’m wishing everyone a long drawn-out period of nothing much. Of “I’m just ticking along, thanks”. Of “everything’s pretty mundane actually”. I would like everything to be so dull that we receive a pamphlet on what to do when you’re at risk of death from inertia. I want to be so serene that I can finally turn my attention to writing fairy porn and making some proper cash.
Before my pivot into fae smut, though, I want to say thank you. Thank you so much for supporting me this year. Whether you read or listened to one piece or all of them, it means the world to me.
I launched this newsletter in January 2023 because I wanted a no-holds-barred outlet for some of my madder editorial impulses. Things I could only speak about in my own way – and I have absolutely loved letting rip. Little did I know what those three years would bring, either personally or collectively. You’ve kept me company through cancer and conspiracy theories, love and loss, hope and grief.
I don’t believe writing needs to be unnecessarily complicated or fancy. I think simplicity and accessibility can sound beautiful. (Sometimes much more beautiful). And I think humour can be the most underrated literary tool. Fuddy-duddy thinking would have us believe that trying to be funny means dumbing things down. I think the opposite. I always have, but especially now when we need laughs more than ever. The fact that many of you clearly feel the same brings me much hope and joy.
Thank you for subscribing, liking, sharing, commenting, and buying me coffees. I have been blown away by your encouragement. I hope you’ll continue along with me into 2026 (be the posts about inertia, chaos or fairy porn, or hopefully a bit of all three) where I’m aiming to keep posting one article a week or, more likely, one every two weeks.
If you know anyone who may also enjoy my work, please do share Just One More Thing with them? New subscribers, comments, and likes are the only way I know anyone is out there, the only way to beat the internal algorithm, and the only way to appease the data gremlins living in The Machine and also in my head.
Thank you again and happy new year! See you on the flip side. Until then, you’ll find me mocking up my existential dullness warning booklet in preparation. Manifest, manifest.
Some of my personal Just One More Thing faves of 2025
Stoma or death? Ah, one stoma, please
6 reasons why I have resting WTF-face right now
The Jeffrey Epstein trilogy: Part One / Part Two / Part Three
Coming to terms with looking different
One of my most read pieces: Hypernormalisation: why the world feels so ‘off’ right now
Substacks I would like to recommend
A video I think you should watch
I post this video every year because it always makes me cry (in a good way) and is an example of when writing can be both fancy and funny. Have a lovely break, everyone. See you on the other side.
*My new book, Own Your Calm, is published in March 2026! Available across the US and Europe (in English), I’ve included the UK link here but please do check your local bookseller: Own Your Calm UK. I have written eight other (bestselling) mental-health books which have been translated into dozens of languages. I’ve also written a book about the TV show Friends which would make a delightful gift for any Friends obsessives. All are available to buy online or at your local bookshop.
Loved this round up Jo and Happy New Year to you too! 🎉 ✨
Happy New Year, Jo!
Thanks for your kind mention of Wendy’s World.
That message from the government is far from festive, but I guess in Dutch fashion they are just being up front.
I’m hoping in 2026 we’ll somehow all get the prize half of the Christmas cracker.