Saturday night.  Feeling decidedly Autumnal out there.  Grey moody skies with gusty winds and the lush green summer shrouds are all quivering off the trees in the leafy green suburb where we live.

Half-way through school holidays and the kids are all home so we had a roast dinner and I made fresh bread which was a huge hit.  Life’s decidedly fucking boring and mundane right now and I absolutely Love it.

We are recently returned from a trip to Southeast Asia that was less than idyllic as I did an incredible “scene from the exorcist” impression after contracting a serious bacterial or perhaps amoebic infection through dirty ice in a huge cup of sugar cane juice in a market on a border town in Laos called Huay Xai.  Not. Fun. 

We were also smacked square in the face with serious environmental and human rights issues that just left me feeling spoiled and helpless.  Air quality was so bad you couldn’t see 10 metres into the distance and everything was an eerie sepia yellow tone no matter the time of day.  Fucking confronting.  

I Loved our trip.  Despite being sick as fuck and painfully confronted.  We also had to leave our planned itinerary so I could lay writhing in pain in a hotel room in Bangkok for a week.  The views were great and there were a few times I was even able to venture out of the room and into the winding streets and alleyways for a sneak peak.  

The people we saw, met and interacted with were fantastic.  Calm, humble, funny.  Southeast Asia has a vibe that is completely devoid of the “me first” urgency and hubris of Western countries – but at the same time we noticed that man can the Thais’ hustle.  There’s a sense of community everywhere you go, everyone seems to have some kind of job to do no matter how apparently high or low (societally), and whatever it is they’re doing – you can be sure they’ll do that job incredibly well. As for jumping up and down and demanding special treatment? Well that gets you nowhere in this part of the world. 

Bangkok is an amazingly poorly planned and yet somehow exquisitely functional city.  There’s abject poverty squished up against 5 star luxury.  One minute you are at a Sheraton and the next you’ve turned a corner into perfectly ordered alleyway of organised chaos.  Little street vendor stalls parked up and wash basins and bikes and all manner of kitchen appliances and accessories were stacked along walls and tucked in corners.  There was a cheerful and chatty old lady taking a sponge bath who was conversing contentedly with a friend who had a toddler perched in front of her on a rickety old bike.  Moments like that, are why I travel.  Being honoured with the luck to happen across such beautiful moments.  We were absolutely inconsequential in a city of well over 10 million permanent residents.  We just meandered through the streets, malls, train stations and restaurants people watching and relishing the anonymity.  

Home now, in our cushy, warm, beautiful, rented villa in Auckland.  This week I bought a cute little city car to ferry my kids around and get to and from the farm in.  My hand was forced as our old faithful Hybrid Lexus was stolen from right outside my son’s bedroom window at his father’s house.  The house is inside a gated compound, and they just left the gate ajar one evening as people were coming and going and some opportunistic thieves went right on in and helped themselves to the car.  Crazy.  Insurance will cover a decent part of the 2020 BMW i3 I now zip around the city in.  

That car cost us $42K in NZ coin.  I thought that was a bargain tbh.  The average office worker, after a university education in Thailand makes around 600฿ a day or around 250,000฿ per year.  That’s about $28.50NZD a day or 12K per annum in our currency.  So, I am driving my kids to school and myself to work in something that costs nearly 4 years worth of wages in Thailand. 

I didn’t need a trip to Thailand and Laos to know that I am drowning in privilege.  I didn’t need it, but I appreciate it and I am desperate to bring my kids there.  We are planning four weeks in the region at the end of this year, just us and the teenagers.  We’ve already arranged to meet up with a few of our contacts from this most recent trip, and I we feel like the most recent trip will be fresh enough in our minds that we will find be able to find our stride pretty quickly.

So that’s it.  Nothing really much to report or going on.  Feeling pensive and profoundly blessed to be lucky enough to have a brilliantly boring week here at the foot of Maungawhau in Tamaki Makaurau.  

Blessed but ready to close this chapter.  

Aotearoa has had 30 years of the very best I had to give and I really can’t say it’s heading in a direction I care to witness any longer.  Tall poppy shaming and shenenigans, bullies and bullshit artists, well, those shady fuckers seem to have far more influence and free reign than the enlightened, kind and collaborative people I am blessed to know lately.  It’s boring.  And tedious. 

So we will get our businesses and lives arranged in such a way that we can leave this island nation with the kids who are keen to join us on our next chapter.  I’m well ready to get gone at this point.  Every time I read the news, or hear about the latest patronizing patriarchal performance one of my esteemed goddess friends is suffering through, well it reminds me it’s time to move on.  

Selfish as that may be.  I can’t handle the trajectory my once beloved home is on.  

In the meantime, I am looking very forward to the time I get to spend with good friends, and the many adventures we have planned here down under in the Antipodes and Asia Pacific regions.  Every time I travel I learn something.  And there’s still so very much I want to (and need to) learn.

Founder-tigued!

Some people are great at starting things. Some excel at generating momentum. Then others thrive in BAU and steadying a ship. There are ideas people. There are details people. Some folks are logical, some people are magical contagious champions or cheerleaders. It’s all important and impactful stuff!

Aside from these various types of helpful humans, there’s unfortunately also a category of people who apparently prefer taking credit for things they did not do. They also deny responsibility for their mistakes, and generally exist to annoy and confound people who are earnestly trying to get through life with some level of purpose and poise.

After helping to found four businesses; organizing literally thousands of events & activities; starting charities, groups, and digital communities; I’ve been pretty public about getting burned out and bullied. But in all honesty, I don’t think I would have been half as exhausted if it wasn’t for the shit kicking I’ve taken from the aforementioned category of people. They are out there and that’s really boring and annoys me.

I’ve lost count of how many things I’ve instigated or created that have either fizzled out or been hijacked by losers who have never had an original idea themselves, but rather prefer to scavenge other people’s work. 

After grieving about it all for a bit, today I can honestly say I give none fucks. Did once. They’re gone. It is much better being fuckless in these matters. Let others take credit for things they didn’t do. Let opportunists feast on scraps from your table. Allow these folk to have a fleeting moment or throw their weight around and act like Mayor Shit of Turd Town riding on the tails of other people’s ideas, efforts and resources. Fuck it. Doesn’t even actually matter.

So here’s the thing. After years of being in 100% survival mode and pushing a lot of shit uphill, I made a conscious decision to step away from the incessant hamster wheel of that worldly rigmarole, and guess what, I now actually get to relax most of the time and live an incredibly blessed existence. 

My second husband and I spend most days as blissed out newlyweds. The company we have started together is going from strength to strength and operates at a very sustainable pace. Our friends are incredible and supportive, despite many (perhaps most) of them having to shovel plenty of their own proverbial uphill. Our kids get along and are thriving despite their own unique challenges and trials. The cat is an asshole but he’s our precious three legged jerk. Wouldn’t trade any of these things.

So… I am currently knocking on the door of my mid 40’s and finding myself – to coin a new phrase – “Founder-tigued”.  What does that mean? 

I recently made a new friend at a hen’s night, also a founder and fierce goddess, and she said something I can’t stop thinking about. We discussed how both her and I had spent decades filling our snoots with booze to battle our social anxiety and imposter syndrome.  As a result, she no longer drinks and I have been incredibly good at not drinking or drinking not too much for about four years now – even moderation in moderation say I!  

I’m not going to lie, both my new friend and I have had some pretty solid success with our first businesses, so the first night we met our chats covered how interestingly both our (in my case ex) halves get the vast majority of the credit for the success of these businesses that we had co-founded.  It’s just the way it is.  It’s unfair, unreasonable, uncool and unfun.  We also discussed mansplaining and being treated like an idiot because we are women – but that’s a rave for another time! 

The most profound moment of many profound moments speaking to my new friend was when I confided that I had been more hurt, disappointed, betrayed and confounded by cruel and manipulative women pretending to be my friends, than I ever was by useless misogynistic male bullies.  I also pointed out that despite that, I am utterly and honestly buoyed by the magic of women and the support and Love I have known since finding my “no” and protecting my boundaries.  

Women are powerful.  The women I know, Love, trust and rely on are powerful and together we can get through and create any damn thing that needs managing or manifesting.  Facts.

I suggested to her that we ought to consider some sort of plan to champion and support women.  No idea what it would look like, mentorship, investment, encouragement… but I felt we could do something cool.

The next time we hung out was at our mutual friends’ perfect wedding.  Here is what she told me between sipping coke zero and chatting about children and travel:

“I thought about what you said, and we should champion and support women together and I realized, I am just too tired.  Done, I am done.  So let’s hang out and not do that instead.”

That. Was. So. Helpful.

Here’s the thing, we both still have a lot left in the tank.  We are magical middle-aged goddesses with big brains full of strategy and experience that could be put to all kinds of good use.

But we’ve both also spent years working our asses off while being variously shat on from all kinds of different heights and directions. 

I like my new friend.  I am impressed by what she has done and who she is at this point when I have been lucky enough to meet her.  She’s got plenty going on and heaps of adventures all over the planet to look forward to this year, as do I.  

But right now, what I mostly want out of life is to expressly not found/start any or many new things because I am foundertigued.

And what that means is that I instead choose to have a handful of people close to me and a short beautiful list of things I am doing and am passionate about and can make a world of difference to. That’s not to say I won’t pop back up at some point; an older, wiser, stronger more powerful version of the hurricane I once was. I guess we shall see.

Thanks for reading.