The Life We Worked For
Somewhere between unfinished kitchens, airport lounges and karate mats, I realised I’d stopped apologising for the life we’re building.
Tonight I’m sitting at the bench in our unfinished kitchen drinking a glass of wine and eating blue cheese while I write this.
We still don’t have taps connected. There’s no gas on the cooktop yet either, so at the moment our culinary capabilities are fairly limited. Toast. Reheated food in the oven. Coffee. That’s about it. The kitchen itself is still very much a work in progress, but sitting here tonight I realised that maybe that’s why this moment feels important. So much of our life right now feels like it exists in that space between what was and what’s coming next.
But this year has felt different.
Not in the showy Instagram version of success where everything looks polished and effortless, but in a subtle way that I think only really becomes visible when you stop long enough to notice it. Richard and I have travelled internationally four times this year and the kids three. Two of those trips were proper holidays, the kind where we really had time to exhale instead of trying to optimise every second. We have another trip coming up to Uluru later in the year and somewhere amongst the airports, the late nights, the unpacking and repacking, the podcasts, the business conversations and the endless movement of family life, I realised I’ve stopped apologising for wanting the life we’ve worked so hard to have.
That has probably been one of the biggest internal shifts for me lately.
For a long time I think I carried this strange discomfort around success, as though openly enjoying the results of hard work somehow made you arrogant or out of touch. Like you were supposed to minimise it, soften it, downplay it so other people didn’t feel uncomfortable. But the truth is we have worked incredibly hard for this life. We have taken risks people see and don’t see. We have rebuilt things multiple times. We have worked long hours, travelled constantly, juggled businesses, homeschooled children, trained consistently in martial arts, sacrificed, adapted and continued moving forward even when things were uncertain.
I don’t feel guilty for enjoying the result of that anymore.
What I have found I’m letting go of is the constant feeling that I need to prove myself. I don’t feel the same pull toward performative online culture either. The endless noise, certainty and positioning has started to feel exhausting to me. I’m much more interested now in honesty, observation and real life. Not in telling people what they should do, because I honestly don’t think there is one correct way to build a life. I think people are different. Families are different. Priorities are different. I’m not trying to coach anyone into becoming us. I’m just sharing what our life looks like while we’re living it.
I’ve also noticed myself becoming more protective of our peace. Not perfection. Peace.
Martial arts has unexpectedly become a big part of that for me. We spent most of today at karate and there is something about training that forces you back into the present moment. Structure. Discipline. Repetition. Respect. You can’t really exist in ten different mental tabs while someone is trying to throw you across a mat. It quiets the noise in a way modern life rarely does.
The kids are growing into themselves too, which is one of the most rewarding parts of all of this. One is fascinated by food and wants to travel internationally as a chef one day, so when we were in Singapore we explored food culture as much as tourist attractions. Hawker stalls, local favourites, famous dishes, tiny observations about how people gather and eat. The other is stepping naturally into leadership through karate and has become a senpai, helping teach younger students and taking that responsibility seriously. Watching your children slowly become themselves is a strange and beautiful thing.
Maybe that’s what I’m really trying to protect now. Our curiosity. Our family rhythm. The space to keep becoming who we are without feeling the need to package it into something more impressive than it is.
Right now that looks like sitting in an unfinished kitchen eating blue cheese and drinking wine while the house slowly comes together around us.
Honestly, I think that’s enough.
