nothing here but a year for change
issue 307 - 4th January, 2026
CJW: Welcome to the first nothing here for 2026. We’re so happy to have you here. In order to give ourselves a break over the holidays, we tend to do some sort of special issue around late December or early January - usually a retrospective (and/or a movie discussion relevant to the holidays) - but this time around Lidia had a different suggestion that we decided to run with.
And of course, next issue there’ll be plenty to say about Venezuela, I’m sure. For now, let’s just say Death to Empire, and leave it at that.
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The Team
Daniel Harvey (DCH) - Designer, writer, provocateur. Pro-guillotine tech critic. @dancharvey
Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - is also Mia Walsch. Writer & visual artist. Meme collector.
Corey Jae White (CJW) - author, voidwitch, fearless never peerless.
Lidia Zuin (LZ) - Writer and purveyor of melancholy whimsy.
2025 is dead, long live 2026!
In the Chinese horoscope, 2025 was the year of the snake and also from a numerological perspective, 2+2+5=9 which is a number that represents endings, while 10 would mean conclusion or totality, if you think of tarot.
For many astrologers and tarot readers, last year was an opportunity for closing cycles and shedding the snakeskin to prepare for another chapter of our lives.
It’s nothing new that people make New Year’s resolutions, but in this special, we’re sharing things that we actively left behind in 2025, big changes that have happened to our lives, or even what we wish we had put an end to.
LZ: I ended an 18-year-long relationship in December 2024, so 2025 on its own was a whole new chapter for me. I started dating again, or maybe for the first time, and especially using dating apps. This is something I want to leave behind because, even though I have found really nice men there, I think they are the closest we can get to a gate to hell. I really hope I don’t need them anymore this year or ever.
I’m also leaving behind two best friends. One of them was in my life for almost 20 years, another one played a very important role in my life here in Sweden. However, when disrespect is too loud, you can’t just ignore it anymore.
I’m a person who forgives a lot, many would say I have an immense threshold for bullshit, but once I hit the limit, it’s over. And most people don’t see it coming because it just happens, and then there's no coming back. Should I perhaps communicate better that I’m really hurt and avoid an abrupt cut? Well, I did it and people still took me for granted, so… no.
Though I learned that many things are not final in life and I could someday be friends with them again, for now I’m leaving behind two people who were really important to me, but were only making me anxious and doubting myself for the past year.
I’m also trying to leave behind my people pleasing tendencies and my habit of parenting those who I love. This didn’t go well before, but it’s just the way I am. That’s not an excuse though, so I hope I quit being a rescuer this year and understand that simply empathising with someone is enough — I don’t need to become their caretaker.
Mollie from the podcast Back From The Borderline has a couple of episodes in which she talks about people-pleasing, fawning and being the caretaker. I think her podcast really helped me this year. This isn’t something I want to leave behind, but I do want to leave behind another habit that I created that was watching collective or sign-based tarot readings. Good thing is that they are already pissing me off because I see the patterns and how some interpretations are actually the reader’s projections, far-fetched understandings of the spreads, and clickbait for desperate people. Expect an essay about that coming up next!
MJW: This year I gave away a big portion of the identity I’ve embraced for the past two decades: stoner babe. Part lifestyle choice, part addiction, and all-encompassing semi-fugue state. I spent my teens with my chops wrapped around a bong, my twenties rolling joints, my thirties puffing on expensive vapes. Weed fulfilled many roles in my life: a pacifier, a way to escape my roiling moods, medicine for my chronic migraines, a giggly funtime. I’m in my mid-forties now, and started to realise I could barely string a verbal sentence together. My brain was blank a lot. I was lethargic and exhausted all the time, and as much as I’d like to believe my longterm weed habit didn’t have anything to do with it, that would have been lying to myself.
When the pandemic began and during lockdown, I started ramping up my consumption and I just couldn’t shake it. I spent five years almost always stoned and I don’t doubt it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t write a lot during that time. Getting a legitimate cannabis prescription gave me access to medicinal grade weed, and didn’t help matters. My attention span was shot, I spent a lot of time trying not to tip over, and my main pastime was sitting on the couch and giggling at the tv.
This year, I decided to scrap that part of my identity. I made the decision to stop, and I just stopped. Like when I quit smoking, it was both the hardest and easiest thing to do. You just make the decision, and keep making it. I won’t say I am completely sober–I’ve always thought a cheeky puff now and then was completely acceptable, and other people’s drugs don’t count, right? But I’ve shaken off the stoner babe identity and the daily habit and I’m feeling better. I’m looking forward to this next stage of my life. What can I make my identity now?
DCH: Leaving US tech is a journey that takes time and it’s something I’ve been doing for awhile now. It starts as a low-grade unease. A sense that too much of your life is mediated by companies that answer, in the end, to a single government with an expanding definition of “lawful access.” So you begin small. Gmail becomes Proton Mail. Chrome becomes Opera. Google Docs becomes Proton Docs. None of it feels heroic. It feels like flossing: mildly annoying, obviously overdue.
Then you hit the wall. Maps that don’t quite know where you are. Calendars that stop playing nicely with everyone else’s. Group chats split across Signal, Telegram, and whatever compromise you haven’t made yet. The convenience tax reveals itself as infrastructure. US tech isn’t dominant because it’s better in every case; it’s dominant because it fused itself to work, friendship, logistics, and memory. Leaving isn’t hard because alternatives don’t exist. It’s hard because the exits were never meant to be visible.
At some point the project stops being about replacement and turns into self-inventory. What do I actually need to function, and what have I been tolerating out of habit? You accept that some dependencies will remain — Apple hardware, Amazon servers under someone else’s app, Google lurking three layers down. The goal shifts from escape to alignment. Fewer defaults. Fewer silent permissions. A smaller surface area of surrender. Not freedom exactly. But a clearer relationship to the systems that shape you.
CJW: I’m in a hell of a transitional period in my life anyway at the moment, so it took some thinking for me to figure out what I need to leave behind. But last night as I was scrolling bluesky and seeing people react to the latest of the US empire’s attacks on democracy and the so-called international rules based order, I decided it’s time to leave fear behind, because nothing is guaranteed.
One of the strange things about transitioning is realising that there’s now a massively increased chance of you being beaten to death in the streets, just for the mere fact of existing as yourself. There’s fear as wariness, which is justified, but there’s also fear as defeat - not dressing as femme as I otherwise would want to, not going places at all, and letting fear create excuses for me to stay in my safe little comfort zone. Reaching out to people I want to connect to, creating art fearlessly (both in terms of themes and stories being told, as well as experimenting with forms other than prose), living and loving fearlessly - just pushing myself to live more and better because fuck knows what the future holds. The future and uncertainty are scary, but I have my health and fairly stable income, so I should do more now, while I can.
God, fear has even kept me from voice training and practicing makeup more (because often dysphoria is fear that other people will see you how your brainworms make you see yourself, if that makes sense), and there’s no need for it, so I’m refusing it.
After all, what was the point of coming out if I’m going to hold myself back for any reason? I was depressed for decades because there was something utterly foundational missing, and now that I’ve found it, I owe it to myself now, and that poor, lost and depressed girl to embrace everything about my new life with fervour.
Thanks again for joining us. We wish you all the best for the coming year. May you find kindness and calmness amongst all the rest. Hold love close.
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