Archive • I thought about that a lot • Buttondown

🎄❤️ In 2025, I thought a lot about loss and connection

December 24, 2025

This year I’ve thought about and experienced a new form of grief: separating from and divorcing the partner I knew for decades, with small children caught in...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about my identity as I grow older

December 23, 2025

From around the age of 5, I remember being asked to circle my gender, my ethnicity and tick a set of boxes on standardised tests. That’s the thing about...

🎄 Bag a book (and bag a bag)

December 22, 2025

Festive greetings, friends 👋 Last year, we created an I Thought About That A Lot book to celebrate 5 years of the essay advent calendar. We have: 🌟 a few...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about the 11-year-old stowaway

December 22, 2025

I was 11 years old, hidden among sacks of grain in the back of a truck, watching the stars through gaps in the tarpaulin as we rolled south through the...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about big hearts and being too much

December 21, 2025

I was about 12, standing in the kitchen of my great-aunt’s house at her annual Christmas party — yapping away to a handful of older relatives. Whatever I was...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about sex that wasn’t mine

December 20, 2025

Loud moan. Heavy breathing. I am battling between being awake and asleep. A woman’s high-pitched moans. I tap the light on my wristwatch. 2.07am. Being woken...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about the monster in Not Now, Bernard

December 19, 2025

My 4-year-old daughter has always been delighted by the macabre. We trace it back to when she accidentally saw the scene in Jurassic Park where the 2 kids...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about what we leave behind

December 18, 2025

After my grandma died, we found a book of A4 file paper. It has been covered with fabric with pink-coloured leaves, and wallpaper with an orange and blue...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about father-child relationships

December 17, 2025

This year, I reached the age my dad was when he died... I've learnt that father-child relationships mould us like plasticine, leaving thumb marks and indents...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about TV and anti-capitalism

December 16, 2025

Since it first aired in 2019, Severance has been one of Apple TV’s flagship shows. It’s a stylish sci-fi thriller about the results of a pilot ‘severance’...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about fatherhood without a child

December 15, 2025

I am not a father. When I walked into this room a minute ago, I was. But now I’m not. I tell myself this like a riddle as I watch the pale blur on the...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about what home really means

December 14, 2025

"For our house is our corner of the world," wrote French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. For a brief moment, I thought I had found mine. Read: In 2025, I...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about riding my bike

December 13, 2025

Two years ago on a blustery Sunday morning in November, I went to a concrete patch opposite the BMX track in Burgess Park and did the best thing I ever did....

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about hair loss and masculinity

December 12, 2025

The realisation that the end was nigh came at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, aged 20. After a night dancing to the sweet funk of High Fade in Whistle...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about becoming a queer parent

December 11, 2025

My wife and I know we want to have a family. Huge chunks of 2025 (and 2024 and 2023) have been about trying to get there... Before I get into it, I want to...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about the things I want to say to my boss

December 10, 2025

I’m sitting down to write this in a gap between jobs. The downtime is strange, like the world has stopped moving but my thoughts haven’t caught up. Other...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about my body in numbers

December 9, 2025

I’ve always liked numbers and paid attention to them. But I didn’t realise it would reach an entirely new level in 2025... I logged it all in apps: what I...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about how we can't quit what's killing us

December 8, 2025

Giving up smoking was easy. Sorry if that sounds smug, but it was. The trick was not smoking every time I wanted to, until I didn’t anymore. A hundred, maybe...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about stewardship

December 7, 2025

The world does not need more leadership. It needs stewardship. Leaders live in the now. Stewards live across the past, present and future. Leaders, as we...

🎄 In 2025, I thought a lot about my curious, ignorant mind

December 6, 2025

I have been in one way or another glued to the internet since I was 12 years old. I am now 36. Most of my experience has been positive – it has been a place...