Jacinda Resigns. (Patreon)

Hallo loves.

Literally as I board the boat to leave my adopted-home of Waiheke, Jacinda Ardern resigns as the prime minister of Aotearoa New Zealand. I wanted to say a few words…I also posted this to Instagram and Facebook if you want to go comment there or share.

This woman’s leadership kept this country covid-free for over a year. A year in which I decided, again and again, to stay in this country, raise my child where he could be in a school without social distancing and a mask, go to pizza and pool parties, frolick and tickle on the beach, slide down waterslides, make friends, and basically - with the obvious exception of being very far from our home country - live a very normal childhood when our counterparts in New York were locked down. She changed my life, and Ash’s life.

Every day in the beginning of the pandemic - when I was also facing my own micro horrorshow of pain and dealing with the slings and arrows of the patriarchy - I watched this woman communicate and empathize like no other politician I had ever seen. She gave daily explanations. She got in front of a camera every day, while juggling a toddler.

I watched her exercise extreme grace under pressure day after day after day after day as people demeaned her, bullied her, undercut her, patronized her, and more or less tormented her. She handled the mosque massacre. She handled the pandemic. She handled and handled…and was the object of bullying the likes of which I had never seen, but I understood all too well.

Jacinda Ardern not only changed the course of my life, my identity and sense of home; she also inspired me to stay patient and graceful when the world around me was anything but.

“I am human, politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can. And then it’s time. And for me, it’s time,” she said.

So many women feel like Jacinda. I feel like Jacinda. We get to the point where we are done. We cannot handle another round of smiling gracefully as the jackasses of the world make our lives a living hell.

Jacinda: thank you. I hope you get the most nourishing recovery. I hope you get to rest in the soft afterglow of a job so well done.

Thank you for keeping this country safe for me and my son.

Thank you for changing the world. Thank you changing my life.

Kia Kaha.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

xx

-AFP

PS A Shot of me and Ash saying goodbye to the ocean this morning on Waiheke .. photo by Bianca Scarlett.