I Promise This Letter Won’t End Badly

“Festive Letter” the line says on our editorial calendar. Byline: Mine.

Well, dear friends, here we go. Let’s find something festive to talk about, shall we. Who wants to go first?

[Crickets]

Fine, I’ll go first. 

Just over a year ago I told The Persistent edit team that I really wanted to do some stories on finding joy. Not just some stories, I wanted to do a whole series of stories; I wanted joy to pop up on The Persistent like fairy mushrooms. I wanted joy to be the drumbeat that underpinned our increasingly difficult daily lives and our increasingly terrible news cycle.

If so much joy was going to be taken away, I reasoned, should we not hang on for dear life to the bits that came our way? Was it not an act of resistance to find joy, laughter, humor and satisfaction, even in dark times? 

I pestered Josie Cox into writing a “reasons to be hopeful” piece. (Friends and friendship! More women in big-deal financial jobs!) I begged Mara Altman to investigate the nature of joy. (“Joy can be ridiculous and absurd, beautiful and uplifting, delicious and delightful.”) 

And yet, the bad news broke hard and fast anyway, the slivers of light fewer and further between. Wars ticked on while promises of peace came and went, slippery as eels. The gutting of USAID spilled over into women–and children’s–lives in so many ways. Gaza remained a place of horror and hunger, with women there stripped of dignity. In Sudan, it was women—of course—who bore the brunt of unbearable violence. Australia and the U.K. (among others) acknowledged huge crises of gender-based violence, while the digital world became a war zone of its own where women, not surprisingly, were targeted more than any other group. There was the ongoing aftermath of Pelicot case that haunted my thoughts. And the slow and dreadful drip-drip-drip of Epstein documents that have become so much a part of our news cycle that some have described them as not particularly revelatory. They are revelatory to me.

Despite all this, good news still happened. There were big moments in women’s sports. Japan got its first woman prime minister. Kirsty Coventry was named president of the International Olympic Committee. Dame Sarah Mullally became the first woman appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, leading the Church of England. And Taylor Swift reminded us that women can not only be their own boss but also their own economic engine.

But we were talking about joy, am I right? And these wins, wonderful though they are, haven’t exactly scratched my itch for joy. Indeed, as I watch the increased efforts by those in power—and to be sure, also those not in power—to roll women back to “where they belong” with whines of unfairness and a desire to return to the natural order of things, I feel my own joy drain away.

Changing things is not always possible—at least not as quickly as I'd like. Nor is feeling joy. So here’s my ask for 2026: In those moments when joy fails to show up, give yourself and those around you some grace.

That’s my new plan, at least. It helped me this week, when I finally got down to the business of the season: wrapping presents. Like the decent planner I am, I had ordered a bunch of gifts, stocking stuffers and trinkets several weeks back so I was mostly prepared. And I had enough paper to wrap 200 gifts—and sticky tape too! See? Prepared! But when I was done, that lovingly wrapped pile of presents suddenly looked, well, inadequate. It’s not good enough, is what I thought. Everyone will be disappointed. I should have started this months ago.

And then I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and reminded myself, that I did what I could and I did it with love. And maybe, this year, that’s as good as it gets.

Your neighbors, too, are getting through their day. Perhaps they are grieving. Maybe they are struggling to pay bills. Perhaps they lost a job. Maybe they’re angry at themselves. I try to keep this in mind when someone sends a hurtful email or doesn’t call back when they say they will. It’s for these moments that grace is most useful. We are all humans after all. 

Joy is great. When it comes, embrace it for all its worth. In fact, I highly suggest you go seek it out, if you are able. But when joy fails to materialize, let grace take its place. I, for one, am convinced that (almost) everyone deserves a little grace. And yes, I'll include myself on that list, too.