Yesterday was just incredibly unpleasant in Auckland. An epic deluge of rain from another of those atmospheric rivers blew through the city and Northland. 

Leaks in my home wept. This reminded me of the huge amount of work we have ahead of us breathing new life into this nearly century old building. Not many people would be keen to take on such a mammoth task, but we have a great team, and our designers are well across it and good design saves so much cost and confusion down the line.

Relevant colloquialisms = a stitch in time saves nine, an ounce of prevention saves a pound of cure. There’s more, but we have an incredible design and architecture team, flanked by loyal (albeit quirky) building and implementation team. Very blessed and always a little bit stressed at this stage of our evolution. 

I would not trade a single thing about the complete chaos and incredible amount of effort and meaning my life has right now. But fuck me. There’s always a lot going on.

What else went haywire? Oh yes, we were late (a whole 6 minutes) dropping son to school as it was a swamp on the motorway and we also missed our exit.

The scales in the morning tipped in at 77kg which is 20kgs more than I ought to weigh apparently. Pfft. Whatever. 

Just a bit of a clusterfuck all around really.

Yet, somehow it was a lovely, productive, beautiful day. 

We’ve been getting a lot of invites to a lot of things lately. My answer to almost everything is still a big, clear, booming and beautiful NO.

Damon will be going to a couple of things with my son Daniel as he is a grown up now.

So yes, yesterday ought to have been quite awful, yet it absolutely was not.

My beyond doting darling Damon was perfect portions of annoyed and delighted with various projects, implementation and plans. I ran errands successfully and got well over 15k steps and went to Pilates. I hate pilates. I hate all exercise that isn’t walking through the woods/forest/mountains or skiing. But doing stuff I hate makes my amygdala stronger according to my 20 year old geektastic Daniel son.

The most important thing that happened? My friend rang me to tell me she was impressed by my parenting. 

I was at Costco beating the crowds at 10am on a Tuesday to grab cheese and bulk lunchbox snacks. She called, and her tone of earnest triggered the abused/gaslit/neglected Dee I used to be and I thought she was ringing to scold me.

My broken brain, even after 6 years of healing, recovery and unmedicated and unmitigated safety and freedom assumed I was in trouble. 

Here is a screenshot that kinda describes the level of me I get to be since turning my back on most of my life some years ago now:

Today I am me. Me does not give a single fuck what most people think about the me that I am. I don’t talk shit about other people (except my ex and my trashy persona non grata biological disaster zone that were once considered family). There’s not really time to judge other people or be concerned with what anyone else is doing, unless they make me aware or want or need time from me. I will make time for most people if they ask still. But most people do not and that’s cool.

The serious lack of interest in what other people think of or say about me did not seem possible when I was stuck in the glittery but shitty life I used to lead. Old me was addicted to validation, now I crave connection and meaning.

If someone does not like me? Good.

I like me.

TBH, I am a fucking delight.

So… Yeah.

Nope. Not in trouble. She took the time to tell me what a joy it was to see me parent and how great our rapport as mother and son is.

I cannot begin to tell you what that means to someone who was gaslit, abused, and wrongly accused of being a poor parent and crazy person. 

Me 10 years ago could not imagine the safety and balance that comes from practicing the actual zero tolerance for fuckery I am able to maintain through most of my life. It is standard operating procedure to be authentic and imperfect, and I have the bandwidth to engage with the very small number of people (which included family) I allow in my space. 

Want to make more time to see more people who I do indeed Love. But this will happen when it happens.

I have four friends who I speak to almost every day.

That’s all I can handle.

That is enough and they get the benefit and burden of being in my inner circle. 

So.

I popped round for a very uplifting visit with one of the favoured four the night before. Went straight to see her after picking up my son from the North Shore. 

We laughed and chatted and Jamie joined us to protest and complain he was bored. He’s 11, it is his job to be bored and boredom is a gift denied most children these days.

We were the last generation (Gen X) to grow up entertaining ourselves in nature and being bored. 

Sigh.

So he joined our conversation and we had long chats about the Persephone project which he has been hearing about in some form his whole life. I asked what he thought Persephone was gearing up to do. He thought it was rescuing women who were like me when I was sad and broken.

Reasonable assumption indeed. 

But nope. My friend and I both chimed in and said there is nothing ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, nor triage, nor rescuing, nor sheltering women. Persephone will uplift and encourage, not rescue.

Semantics are everything. We explained semantics and how saying the same (relative) thing with different words could change everything about how the message is recieved.

This budding legacy project is all about supporting and uplifting women who have already done enough work to be safe and strong, and need a push to get to the next level in a world that has made it hard for women to get ahead. 

No rescuing. 

We rescued ourselves. 

Just recognising, supporting, acknowledging, investing in, and encouraging goddesses in meaningful ways.

So when she called, and her voice sounded serious, I thought she was gonna maybe scold me for using the cunt word as liberally as I had in conversations with her incredible daughter (who I adore and am so proud of). 

I cannot tell you in hindsight how ridiculous this assumption was, or how sad I am at my brain for thinking that everyone is gonna sucker punch me, scold me, lie to me, or give me shit any time I pick up a phone call. 

Our conversations with her 19 year old delight of a daughter were scintillating. She’s doing an intense biomed degree and we talked about brains and pathways and all sorts of interesting things she learned that day.

Full disclosure, this friend is a super mom. Kind, funny, warm, supportive and so much more engaged with the meaningful journey of being a mom than I ever was. She’s just dreamy and I am in awe of her most of the time.

However, this particular friend never uses the words cunt or bitch, and she hasn’t for a long time. It is one of her many unique and beautiful ways of celebrating women and flexing her feminist activist muscle. No derogatory phrases pertaining to female anything. 

I, on the other hand LOVE the cunt word. It is my favourite on so many levels and for so many reasons.

Using it as liberally as I do is how I practice my own method of worshiping women. It is a divisive word about a powerful, beautiful and magical thing that I am glad to be in possession of.

This is not a secret. I can put my sprinkling of c word and scrappy language to the side when I need to, but I never feel the need to when it is her and I. We’ve been great friends for a long time now.

So yeah.

Healing and happiness don’t mean the cPTSD part of you doesn’t revert to fear and fight or flight thinking even when you are safe and know you are safe. 

I say no to almost everything and only do things that I simply know I must or that bring me actual joy.

Damon and I also finally got around to getting our nails done yesterday. The technicians at the nail place know us really well at this point. We aim to visit the salon when it is quiet (which is rare) and we sometimes give gifts from the farm. 

Everyone is so kind and warm to us there. And they’re curious about us as we travel so much and have a lot of kids who come along from time to time to get their nails done.

My nail tech had even more questions than usual yesterday.

We covered the fact I am a witch, and I clearly like to be barefoot. she could tell from the state of my heels you see. I also explained that I avoid humans as much as I can and that is why I am so happy traveling to places where nobody knows me, nobody cares who I am and I can just smile at strangers and live my life and learn things to apply to our farm and other projects. 

A lovely woman named Barbara from Waimate (deep south) overheard our conversations. She laughed long and hearty through our chats, and said she fully understands my desire to disappear most of the time. 

I was too kind, and too accessible for far too long. I used up all my fucks begging to be seen and validated and failing to feel better from either of these things.

Now, I just relish my own company. Validation is not required, human contact is kept surface level and safe, but I still hold space for offering support and advice because I can do this without putting myself at any risk of burn out theses days. Boundaries are strong and beauty and magic are everywhere most of the time.

I still get triggered. I still struggle with deep sadness. I still feel angry and scared a lot of the time.

But brains do learn to seek and find joy and feel safe. 

If the feelings of anxiety and frustration are invited to run their course, and gratitude and wonder are nurtured in healthy green light relationships… brains and hearts do heal.

Yesterday was indeed a gift, and I just wanted to share a few snippets of it with you.

Thanks for reading.