And the truth is: I’m bored as fuck.

At the beginning of this year, I made an uncomfortable decision to set down my relentless pursuit of goals. I put down the ruler that charted out my annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals and focus areas. I abandoned the symbol-coded bullet journaling. I gave my rainbow colored pens a sabbatical. I decided to pursue my worth as inherent, not earned.

Seemed like a great idea.

Then I had another great idea: let me catalogue my insights and progress! I spent a Saturday afternoon building a GPT based on my journals, my prior goal structure, and my new commitment. In hours of robe-adorned, coffee-fueled GPT vibing, I created a methodology for weekly reflection. I restructured my handwritten note-taking style to a digital format that my GPT could easily analyze. I created a complete phygital system (part physical, part digital): a digital notebook for tasks, a physical notebook for journaling. I diligently wrote weekly journal entries. I listed what I was noticing, what I was letting go, and what I was living in. I shared my journal entries and digital logs with my GPT, mining further insights and reflections. I definitely made sure to do this every Sunday.

Wait a minute.

You see where this is going.

Somehow, even in the absence of rigorously structured goals, my goal orientation crept back in. I was architecting a new, elaborate framework by which I could continue to evolve, grow, learn, and gain insights in my goal-less endeavor.

Once again, I set down the structure.

But I still needed something. Some form of accounting for what the hell I’m actually doing or need to remember. After reading Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals, I settled on a compromise: logging a simple, unstructured, unfiltered list of to-dos to quiet my monkey brain on a Sunday night; logging a simple, unceremonious list of things I had done throughout the week. Less glamour and revelation, more facts and humility.

My workdays are often long and chaotic. On a typical day, I might lead 10-15 meetings. I am in a perpetual state of context switching. In an hour, I might go from: business development mode → admin mode → problem solving mode → wine biz mode → client deliverable mode → mom mode, all compressed into two 30-minute meetings, endless Teams chats and text messages in the background, and the slight breath between it all.

At the end of days like this, my brain feels like a hard-boiled egg. Dense, hot, and stubbornly unwilling to yield the protective shield around it. Even as I move through the daily rituals of unwinding – taking a walk, making dinner, convening over a meal with my family, reading a book, turning the lights out early – I feel my brain cooking, racing to catch up with whatever actually happened in that jet-fueled window from 8 am to 6 pm.

On weeknights, I wait for my brain to unfurl according to a schedule. On weekends, the opposite occurs. I indulge in two days of quiet, agenda-less living. I rest. I make food. I walk. I connect with friends and family. I’ve spent so much of my life in a loop that demands constant striving, hustle, go, go, go. My work day still models that mindset. But, outside of that context, I find myself slowing down dramatically. Observing my plants. Taking a stroll. Running little errands. Planning dinner. Making dinner.

I am so excruciatingly bored.

Whether the weekday grind or the weekend respite, I arrive in the same space: restless ennui.

Old me would have a simple fix to this problem. Take on a new project! Set a new goal! Become fluent in Japanese! I’ve gotten better at spotting the telltale signs, but I still struggle to lay down this habit. In the course of twenty minutes of Saturday couch lounging, I will entertain any number of exciting future realities: community theater, visual arts, a new wine degree, mahjong mastery, reading the complete works of Shakespeare, taking up rollerskating.

I haven’t acted on a single one.

My mental urge to “solve” my boredom doesn’t seem to dissipate. I want so badly to extricate myself from my restlessness. But, deep down I believe I’m here for a reason.

The more I sit with my listlessness, and the more I sit with my passing fancies, the more I realize they’re a cover for something else entirely.

In a moment of frustration and self-quandary, I went back to my non-goal goal-GPT for input.

Annoyingly, the robot had thoughts.

“Are you too afraid to fail that you aren’t willing to try anything?”

Annoyingly, the robot wasn’t wrong.

Side note: this was also the moment when I completely disengaged from further interaction with the GPT, as it bordered on psychotherapy. Kernels of truth are best delivered by humans, not robots.

Because I have been so historically goal-oriented, I struggle to pursue anything without:

• An endgame

• Confidence that I’ll excel

• A gold star

My flights of fancy lack the characteristics for unlocking gold-star-level achievement. They aren’t nearly sexy or public enough. And, they might turn out to be things I objectively suck at. I’m pretty miserable at riding a bicycle, as an example; do I really want to rollerskate?! That could be… bad.

Beyond the fear of failure or fear of not being “the best”, there’s something more. Something bigger that’s holding me back.

I don’t want to pursue for the sake of pursuing. I want to feel something. I want to feel the spark in my veins that signals I’m on the right track. I want to feel that thrill of inspiration, that twinkle in my eye, that sense of possibility mixed with apprehension.

And right now, I don’t feel it.

Maybe, just maybe, that boredom is the fine edge of terror. Terror in failure. Terror in a lack of vitality. Terror in not knowing what you actually want or where to go from here.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the whole damn point.

Maybe the most terrifying idea of all is: this is just life.

In midlife, you weigh two polar realities: you aren’t going to be and do everything; the version of you who was going to do it all has invested in their 401k and is planning toward retirement. You aren’t gazing upon endless potential futures ahead. The window of possibility has narrowed – not closed, but narrowed.

Yet, you still want more: more growth, more mystery, more self-discovery, more adventure, more evolution. The wanting is subtler now, and the pull toward it requires more bravery.

As I approach this year’s squishy, non-number birthday, I am living inside this messy middle. Of letting go, of giving everything, of mourning what isn’t, of celebrating what is, and of relishing and questioning who I am, who I am not, and who I have yet to become.

Maybe that’s the strange, awkward wisdom of midlife in full bloom. Maybe the wisdom is in accepting that perhaps there isn’t a bigger point. Maybe it’s always both. Maybe it always has been.

I don’t know. Ask me next year.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Anxious,” Leo replied.

“That makes sense,” I responded, “Tell me why.”

He let out a sigh. “More independence. It’s the thing I’m most excited about and the thing I’m most nervous about.”

Leo was en route to a big adventure. Each year, his middle school sends its graduating eighth graders on a trip to England, honoring their heritage as a British primary school, and celebrating the culmination of their primary school experience. Nine brave teachers chaperone fifty eager fourteen-year-olds through London and beyond for an action-packed, week-long itinerary with no parents, no cell phones, and no homework awaiting their mutual return for the last week of school.

“I can understand why you’re feeling nervous,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot.

I helped him hoist his bag out of the car. “And you are ready for this! You’ve gone on shorter school trips without your parents. You’ve gone on international trips with us. This is just a little bit bigger, and with more responsibility.”

He nodded.

“I am so excited for you! This is going to be the trip of a lifetime. If there’s any small piece of advice I can offer, it’s this: take it all in. Try your best to be in the moment and to savor it.”

He looked into my eyes. “I’ll try.”

We strode to check-in, queuing up beside teachers and students buzzing with excitement. The Head of School attempted to strike up a conversation. Leo offered single-word replies, his eyes darting towards the ground and towards me.

We checked in. Leo found his friends and began to settle in, relaxing into a smile. I took a few pictures. I chatted with a few moms.

I said goodbye. “Have an awesome time!”

The Parking Lot

Alone, I walked out of the temperate airport, back to the hot asphalt parking lot, a catch in my throat. Buckling in, I turned the music up, ready to move on.

I paused. Maybe I ought to take my own advice. I turned off the sound.

I burst into tears. I cried the whole way home.

The tears rolling down my face were a sweet and salty mixture—of joy, pride, sadness, love, letting go, all at once. A complex brew of emotions, aged slowly and gently over fourteen years of motherhood. The bright notes of happiness, reveling in my son’s adventures. The undertones of mourning, sensing a chapter of parenthood beginning to close. The bold notes of pride, watching Leo step bravely into bigger experiences, even when feeling uncertain. The crushing depth of my love, my heart expanding beyond my body, beating not just within myself, but within my son.

The weight, the beauty, the power of it all feels like more than I can handle.

And yet, I do.

My parenting is beginning to shift its shape from nurturing and safeguarding a child, through shepherding and growing a young boy, towards celebrating and witnessing a young man. Young parents often hear older parents say, “The days are long, but the years fly by.” Trite as it seems, the adage is true. The evolution is slow, until it isn’t.

Moments like the airport drop-off arise now and then, offering a poignant reminder. Slowly but surely, I’m releasing my hands cupped around this person that I’ve known and nurtured since before he knew himself. The most important and rewarding effort of my life is changing before my eyes. That change, while exactly as it’s meant to be, is bittersweet. A love and force so vast, so all-consuming, and yet one that requires letting go.

Leo’s own complex mixture of emotions is mirrored in me. He felt anxious and excited for the exact same reason—for the thrill and the worry of independence. In my own way, I was, too. Joyful and bereft over the exact same thing—he is growing up. My heart, living outside my body, navigating on its own.

The Dance Floor

Still carrying the weight of the afternoon, I headed out to meet a friend. LeVon had surprised me with two tickets. “I want to gift you something, but I don’t want to tell you what it is. You just have to say yes.” I did.

Two tickets to “Moms Feelin’ Themselves”.

When I discovered the plan, I gulped down a tinge of dread. Be open to it, Kat.

My friend, Gina, and I met for dinner beforehand. She’d been to this event before. Her eyes met mine across the table. “I’ll be really curious to see what you think of this,” she mused.

We walked up to the entrance. Moms queued up outside, donning their favorite club attire. In broad daylight. At 7:45 pm.

We advanced to the door. Promotional messaging greeted us from the event’s sponsor: Pelvicore Therapeutics.

We stepped inside. The merch booth was already sold out. I had missed my shot at a baseball cap inscribed with “Motherhood is a real job.”

Snaking around the bar, a long line of women waited to pose against a photo booth backdrop bursting with pink plastic flowers.

We grabbed our drinks and headed to the dance floor. First up: Whitney Houston, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”. Next up: Annie Lennox, “Sweet Dreams”. Next up: Beyoncé, “Girls”. The mom anthem playlist rang on.

I shot Gina a glance. “I can’t handle this.” She nodded.

We were gone in less than thirty minutes.

The Mess

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to judge the many women who were clearly loving this. For mothers of young children, in the thick of sustaining human life, with little to no room for anything else, this event probably felt like a safe haven and a release. But for me, and for my stage of parenthood, the whole thing highlighted how small and tidy the spaces for women and mothers are often constructed. We’re given room to celebrate within the singular identity of motherhood. We’re given rallying cries like “Motherhood is a real job.” We’re given a space to connect solely on the commonality of being mothers. I’ve never seen a “Dads Feelin’ Themselves” event. No one hands them a baseball cap and pumps Dad Jams to reinforce their identity. Dads just go do their thing. Partially because they’re encouraged to do so with greater frequency than most mothers. Partially because we don’t hinge their whole identities on fatherhood. Motherhood alone is not enough of a shared identity to forge bonds between women. It’s one note in a complex blend of flavors, experiences, emotions, and perspectives.

Gina and I walked into the cool night air with a sigh of relief and a hearty laugh. She offered to drive me home. As we wound through the city streets of Denver, we talked about our lives: my tears in the parking lot; her family’s summer plans; our careers; our experience of midlife – of wisdom mixed with metamorphosis. The vast, rich, tangled fabric of our identities, with threads of interconnection and sprawling roads to destinations unknown.

There is space for all of it at once.

The free-flowing tears and the cringe. Pride in my work as a mother and insistence on a title beyond “mom”. A love so consuming I’d die for it and a fierce refusal to be solely defined by it.

The polarities belong beside each other. And when we’re brave enough to embrace the grand mess of it all, the fullness of life reveals itself. My heart cracks open wider. And I rediscover its boundlessness.

The dream looks a bit different up close.

We don’t own a winery. Replace grand visions of a sweeping tasting room, production floor and cellar with a single plot of land. We own a vineyard — one acre, nestled in the heart of Argentina’s Uco Valley. It’s stunningly beautiful and surprisingly small.

The answer to the second question, “When can I buy your wine?” is the trickiest question of all.

The Journey

Our Foretold wines have been on a journey. In March, they bid farewell to their Argentine brothers and sisters, traversed the Andes to the Chilean coast, then set sail for America. The journey was long, the accommodations threadbare. Tucked into a shipping container, they laid down for months as they traveled north along the western coast of the Americas.

Today, our wines sit docked at a port in Los Angeles, waiting to clear customs. What happens next hinges on the persistence of four dreamers and the insanities of the three-tier distribution system.

Charting the Course from Textbook to Reality

In the years of study for my WSET Level 4 Diploma, I learned a lot about the three-tier distribution system. During theory exams, I scribbled away frantically in handwritten essays that described the system and its implications in detail. I really knew my stuff. Or so I thought.

On paper, the three-tier distribution system consists of: an importer, a distributor, a retailer. The importer is responsible for navigating the wine’s transition from its country of origin to its destination. The distributor is responsible for selling wine into wine shops and restaurants. The retailer sells wine on premise (read: in a restaurant or bar), off premise (read: at a wine shop or liquor store), or directly to the consumer. Simple, right? Yeah, not so much.

In reality, the system is far more complex. Unique to America, the three-tier system is just one of many global systems to regulate the production, distribution, and sale of wine. Within the American three-tier system, each state has its own rules. Want to buy wine in a grocery store in Utah? Not gonna happen. Want a winery to ship directly to your door? In Rhode Island, only if you’ve physically visited the winery first. Want to buy online? Not in Delaware. State-level nuances abound.

Added layers of challenge arise for small producers like ourselves. What my WSET studies alluded to, but I couldn’t fully appreciate, was just how stacked the odds are for a small, imported brand trying to break through. According to USA Wine Ratings, three companies dominate U.S. wine distribution, and the top ten distributors control over 81% of the market. Large distributors prioritize volume and name recognition over new entrants. Wave after wave of distributor consolidation leaves small producers like ourselves with limited options. As The Drinks Business reported earlier this year, for producers outside the top-volume tier, fewer distributors means fewer options, less leverage, and less likelihood that anyone in the three-tier chain has a financial incentive to tell their story.

As a foreign producer, we also can’t simply walk our wine into a U.S. distributor ourselves. A U.S.-based importer must step in as the legal first-tier entity, taking title to the wine and handling federal registration, including obtaining a Certificate of Label Approval for every label before customs will release a single bottle. That process typically takes up to 15 business days. Hence our impatient wines docked in LA.

As my partners and I began wrapping our heads around these hurdles, we sought input from anyone and everyone that might help. I reached out to every distributor I knew. LeVon pitched our brand to a local restaurant. Nicole dug through her seemingly endless connections (she is known as “the mayor of Los Angeles” in some circles). Bekka and I popped by our local wine shop to sell our wares. We worked all of our angles.

At our local wine shop, I regularly nerd out on wines with Grant, the store manager. His eyes light up when I come in and ask him to surprise me. Once, he hurried down into the cellar to unearth a 30-year-old bottle of Riesling, bounding back up the stairs with effusive commentary. He’s always eager to lean in.

When it came to our wines, he was equally game, offering to sell them in the store once we identified our distributor. He walked us through the pricing structure and the store’s cut.

Nicole’s research led us to a distributor and a DTC shipper, friends of a friend. “Once the mayor, always the mayor,” Bekka noted of her partner’s vast network. Both of Nicole’s contacts were eager to help. Each explained their cut.

Detour: Math

You know how this story ends. Everyone gets a cut. Our little wines begin their journey at the vineyard, where we pay to tend to the vines and make the wines. They end up in the bottle, where costs vary based on bottling and labeling preferences. They trot off to the shipping container, where we pay for freight. They arrive in the states, where the importer takes their cut. The distributor takes their cut. The retailers (on premise, off premise, direct to consumer) take their cuts. And let’s not forget the federal and state taxes along the way.

I’ll spare you the numbers and get down to the sum of it all: by the time our wine reaches your glass, the fraction that finds its way back to Foretold would make you gulp.

Cut back to the dreamy-eyed question I often field: “Are you going to quit your job and do this for a living?” Nope. That math doesn’t math.

Getting Lost in the Details

If I had a dollar for every time my partners or I said “I really don’t understand…” or “I’m not sure how this works…” or “We need more clarity…” or “How exactly are we going to do this…,” I probably could retire off of our wine business.

I’m also not an operator. Vision, brand, taste — those are my strengths. As our logistics have mounted, I’ve often found myself blank-faced and dopey-eyed, wondering how the hell we move forward.

Thankfully, I’m not alone.

I’m surrounded by the strengths of my partners. Bekka: the owner and operator of a multi-generation family art business; a hustler; someone who gets shit done. Nicole: the owner of her own business in TV production and brand integration; a wheeler and dealer; a former accountant with a secret love of Quickbooks. LeVon: the owner of his own consultancy; a CFO; an expert in guiding and growing small businesses.

Each of us brings unique talents to this endeavor, built from decades of experience in our domains.

Walking the Last Mile

When we are this close, with hurdles ahead but the finish line in sight, we keep coming back to one point of focus: trust.

Our whole endeavor was built on this foundation. When I got the first text from Bekka, gently opening the door to the possibility of buying a vineyard, I trusted. I said yes, without hesitation. I leaned forward and said, “We’ve gotta do this.” Countless obstacles existed. Gingerly informing my ex-husband that I was going into business with his sister — a delicate conversation requiring many layers of trust. Sitting down with Bekka, Nicole, LeVon, and a well-paid lawyer to document a formal operating agreement — soberly outlining what happens when things go right and what happens if they don’t. Sitting across the table from each other over a meal and a bottle of wine — openly sharing our individual dreams and fears. Listening intently. Celebrating the places where we agree wholeheartedly while honoring equally the places where we see things differently.

Hours upon hours of deep conversation, partnered problem solving, and shared excitement in our victories big and small have brought us where we are now. We might not know exactly how it’s going to work out, but what we do know is: we’ve got this.

Finding Your Compass

We all have our own “Holy shit, how am I going to figure this out?” moments — whether navigating a complex project, solving today’s mini-crisis, starting a new business, or staring at a blank canvas. Every one of us experiences that moment when we see the stark gap between a gauzy dream and a practical reality. Every one of us feels the knot in the stomach or the furrow in the brow.

The journey with Foretold has taught me how to recalibrate my compass in those moments.

When the going gets tough, I recenter on the true north of this endeavor. The goosebumps I got when the opportunity arose. The tight hugs we shared standing on our land for the first time. The broad smile on LeVon’s face as we planted our first vines. The unbridled joy in Bekka and Nicole’s voices as they FaceTimed us from our fledgling vines. Beyond the details, the hurdles, and the bureaucracy, a stronger pull carries our efforts: joy, vision, love, and the belief in our shared dream.

Whatever your version of this looks like — your dream, your loved ones, your partners, your friends — the principle holds.

That’s the compass. That’s what carries you through the next step, whatever it turns out to be.

The Early Years: Single Motherhood

My first few years as a mom were tough. Leo, my son, was plagued by colic that persisted for a year. He screamed constantly. Severe asthma sent him to the emergency room regularly, his tiny toes and fingers turning blue. He wasn’t a walk in the park. Unfortunately, neither was my first marriage. Leo’s dad and I struggled from the very beginning, not only to stop our son from screaming in public, but to stop ourselves from screaming at each other. It wasn’t pretty. Before Leo’s second birthday, we were in the midst of divorce.

I thrust myself into a new normal as a single mom. I got a demanding new job that I hoped would pay the bills. I rented a third floor walk up apartment, five minutes from the office. I made my life as small and manageable as possible. And yet, it was anything but.

On weekdays, I pushed to prove myself in a private-equity backed, high-growth company. My colleagues were married with children, or young and single. Our executives were exclusively white men in their fifties and sixties. I didn’t fit in. Some of my colleagues made sure to let me know.

One Friday, walking to the office parking lot with a colleague, she brightly chimed in, “Hey! I’m going to be a single mom, too, this weekend! My husband is on a boy’s trip.” Her intention to connect was… ill-phrased at best. A weekend of solo parenting does not a single parent make.

On weekends, I was alone with my toddler. Up in the middle of the night to tend to his cries. Up bleary-eyed in the morning to start the day. Somehow keeping his boundless energy and curiosity entertained until bedtime, then passing out in a heap.

When Monday mornings rolled around, it almost felt like a vacation.

The Breaking Point

One day, slogging away at the office, I got the daycare call: Leo had broken his leg. I rushed there just in time to jump into the ambulance with him and race to the emergency room. Hours later, my then four-year-old and I emerged. Him with an above the knee cast, me with my nerves narrowly intact. I carried him up the three-floor walk up, his body weighed down by the cast, and my spirit weighed down by everything that had happened and everything that lay ahead.

At that time, LeVon (my now husband) and I had just started dating. Leo barely knew him. A protective mom, I was cautious of introducing my son to someone I was dating. LeVon walked through the door with takeout and a hug, and I burst into jagged sobs. He helped carry Leo to his bed, then left with words of encouragement. “You’ve got this and I’m here to help,” he assured. “It’s going to be okay.” I didn’t quite believe him. Even as he watched me fall apart, he had full faith in me. He saw strength in me that I didn’t see in myself.

Of my own volition, the heavy lifting, quite literally, fell on me. I carried my son from his bed to the bathroom. I carried him to the living room. I carried him up and down the stairs. I held him in the night to soothe his pain and fear. I held my worry and sadness alone. Still in his cast, he returned to daycare and the cycle continued. Only now, I shouldered the added burden of my job, with its unreachable expectations. I was carrying everything I could.

Until I couldn’t.

Weeks of carrying the physical weight of my son threw out my back, leaving me in excruciating pain each time I picked him up, and debilitated on the floor thereafter. I could no longer muscle through the experience alone. I called on LeVon for help. He answered without hesitation.

Just as Leo’s cast was being removed, and I began coming to terms with the full financial weight of his injury, a new breaking point emerged.

I got fired. Right before the holidays.

Ten years later, I still vividly remember the uniquely humiliating experience of walking out of my office, flimsy moving box in hand, crying, borderline hyperventilating, and wondering what the hell I was going to do next.

The physical stressors were immediately replaced with financial stressors. I questioned how I’d pay my rent, much less put gifts under the tree from Santa. But, I did as I always had done: buckled down, prepared to bear the weight, and presumed it was all on my shoulders.

Breaking the Facade: The True Face of Resilience

I could no longer pretend I was holding it all together. I clearly wasn’t. My faults, my failures, my weaknesses, my mistakes, my missteps were readily on display. Not my favorite look. I had no choice but to open up and be honest with myself, with LeVon, and with my friends that I was scared, bone-tired, and uncertain of myself.

But here’s the thing: that’s the birthplace of resilience. Resilience is not about toughing it out, pretending you’ve got answers, or racing forward and steeling yourself against what lies ahead. Resilience is about balancing two truths simultaneously: the truth that life can be hard; and the truth that you are strong as fuck.

The months that followed were filled with very low lows, coming face-to-face with humiliation, shame, guilt, fear, self-doubt, and exhaustion all at once. But they were also filled with tenderness – the tenderness born of looking your partner in the eye and admitting you genuinely don’t know what to do, of texting an acquaintance to ask if they know anyone hiring, of graciously accepting a friend’s offer to pay for a meal out. Slowly, I crawled my way up, out of unemployment, out of physical pain, out of debt, and into a new chapter.

There was no magical realization that I’d made it. No light bulb. No sudden awareness of my own strength. Even now, I still question myself, despite everything I’ve clawed my way through. But somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting for the revelation. I started believing in the well of strength I can marshal when the moment requires it.

The Mother’s Day Meal

That first Mother’s Day after Leo’s broken leg and my firing, Leo had just turned five. That year, LeVon taught Leo a new tradition: cooking for me on Mother’s Day.

It started small, with LeVon helping Leo whip up a Mother’s Day brunch. Five years old, Leo beamed with pride as he plated his creations.

A few years went by and Leo expanded his repertoire. Mother’s Day brunch morphed into Mother’s Day brunch and dinner.

A few more years, and the dinners became more elaborate and more independently executed. Roasted chicken with orzo and arugula salad, all crafted by a nine-year-old chef.

Fast forward to last year, when thirteen-year-old Leo sat down to share his Mother’s Day meal with LeVon and me. He flopped into his seat. “Wow, I am exhausted!” he breathed.

I know the feeling, buddy.

The Weight of It All: Carrying More Than You Think You Can

This isn’t just a Mother’s Day post. Everyone carries heavy burdens. Whether you’re a single parent, someone navigating illness or loss, or a person trying to juggle more identities than feels manageable, you know this weight. Mothers carry a particular kind of invisible labor that often goes unnamed and unrecognized. But the experience of simultaneously feeling like too much and not enough is an experience that belongs to all of us.

The strength within you isn’t accessed by shouldering your burdens alone. It’s accessed by admitting to yourself and those you trust that you don’t have it all figured out and that you could use a little help.

That admission is what opens the door. Heartbreak and determination. Exhaustion and strength. Fear and perseverance. When you can hold both, and bravely share the experience with someone you trust – that is resilience.

You contain multitudes. You deserve to live all of them – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the glorious. You just don’t have to carry them alone.

Of the many feminist theory courses I took, this one centered on Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto. When Haraway’s 1985 text was assigned to me in 2003, I had no idea I’d be living inside its questions in 2026.

The tl;dr version of Haraway’s thesis: the boundaries between human and machine were dissolving and were bound to happen. The real question was: who would get to decide what the hybrid looked like. Whose body? Whose experience? Whose humanity would be centered in the design? Arnold Schwarzenegger gave us an early answer in The Terminator (which we also screened in this particular class; like I said, this professor was fucking cool).

Today, I’m reflecting on a week spent with my fourteen thousand closest friends at a tech conference: Adobe Summit. More than twenty years later, I’m still sitting with Haraway’s central question.

Big Stage Energy

Every year, Adobe Summit offers an unmatched opportunity to experience inspiring, sophisticated marketing technology evolutions. Agentic AI orchestrating entire personalized customer journeys. Internal workflows compressed from months to moments. On-brand creative iteration at unmatched scale. Complex data and insights surfacing from a single prompt. A marketer’s dream, rendered in high definition on a very large stage.

It’s energizing. It’s also something else, simultaneously.

The opening keynote began with Anil Chakravarthy, President of Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration Business — a man — who introduced Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen — also a man — to deliver his final keynote of his 18-year tenure — who then introduced Jensen Huang, President and CEO of Nvidia — also a man — followed by David Wadhwani, President of Adobe’s Creativity and Productivity Business — also a man — who then introduced two women to run a product demo.

I’m not outlining this chronology to explore a well-worn, painfully true conversation about representation. I’m sharing a different kind of well-worn experience.

As I sat under the dazzling rainbow glow of Adobe’s graphics, I felt something in my body before I could place it in my mind. A tightening, surrounded by a twinge of anger, settling into a familiar discomfort. Women and underrepresented voices know this feeling in their bones. It’s the sensation of sitting inside a space that wasn’t crafted for you or with you, silently questioning whether you belong.

Behind The Curtain

Between sessions, I stumbled across a New York Times article by a fellow Vassar graduate and psychology professor, David DeSteno, titled Anthropic Wants Claude to Be Moral. Is Religion Really the Answer?. DeSteno’s article challenged Anthropic’s approach of leveraging religion to cultivate Claude’s morality. He argued that morality isn’t primarily cognitive, but is, rather, embodied. Religious and ethical practice is felt in the context of ritual, community, or physical experience. DeSteno applauded Anthropic’s intention to infuse morality into Claude, but noted that morality training might ultimately fail because Claude lacks something critical: a body.

Haraway would have had thoughts.

Later in the week, a colleague of mine, a woman driving hard in her career, was preparing to speak at an upcoming tech conference. She asked ChatGPT to help write her bio.

It assumed she was a man.

She pushed back. ChatGPT acknowledged its bias. The moment passed. But when she shared the experience with me, the familiar feeling I experienced in the Adobe keynote returned. The pit in my stomach. The tightening in my chest. I suspect she experienced her own version of these feelings.

The Body as Conductor

Here’s what I’m sitting with: leadership is embodied. Creativity is embodied. Belonging is embodied. It’s not a framework. It’s something you feel before you can name it.

And AI, by definition, doesn’t have a body.

More than that, the bodies that built and educated AI, and that now celebrate its productivity gains on sweeping stages, skew heavily in one direction. So, when we talk about AI learning and leading conversations rooted in morality, judgment, and creativity, whose embodied experience is AI actually learning from?

From the glitzy Adobe stage to the ChatGPT ghostwriter, I see the same embodied experience playing out in real time. These aren’t isolated glitches. They are a reflection of whose humanity has been most legibly absorbed, whose voice has been most codified, whose experience has been most architected into the tools that, so we’re told, are going to orchestrate our productivity, amplify our creativity, and reshape how we work.

In 1985, Haraway asked whose body was inside the machine. We’re still answering that question, but the answer I’d give today is not the answer I long for tomorrow.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a post about AI unconscious bias. That conversation is extremely important and is occurring with far more rigor than I can offer. If you want to go deeper, Newsweek’s coverage of AI’s misogyny maintenance hits home, as does Stanford Social Innovation Review’s take on the paradox of the AI gender gap.

I’m talking about something more personal.

My Embodied Truth

Recently, a friend shared an insight stuck with me. In a podcast she listened to, a female somatic psychologist shared this: when something keeps circling in your mind, when you can’t let it go, when it nags at you across days and weeks… that persistence is trauma raising its voice inside your body, asking to be heard.

For years, I’ve ruminated on my place as a woman and a leader in technology and consulting. Many times, I’ve felt the pang that stems from questioning my belonging. In the absence of clear answers, I’ve sought advice and perspective. I’ve sat with senior female leaders in technology, consulting and beyond to hear their stories and seek their counsel. I’ve absorbed their words as salves, as solutions, and as moments of feeling seen. Their perspectives have ranged from uplifting and encouraging to disappointing and subtly devastating. Despite hours of conversation and thought, the question remains.

But here’s what I do know: a deep well of strength resides within me, built from all that I’ve experienced in life. I have endured highs and lows that my body has synthesized into wisdom. The wisdom born of motherhood; of running a marathon; of deep heartache; of climbing fourteeners; of extended silent meditation; of pursuing a dream. The wisdom of these experiences accumulates in this body of mine and makes me who I am.

Yet, I regularly sit in spaces that don’t embody that power or, in the worst cases, actively diminish it. While I’m amazed by the ways marketing and technology are transforming, carving out new productivity gains, orchestrating new experiences, and upending the MarTech ecosystem, I can’t help but consider who these gains benefit most deeply.

I don’t have a tidy answer, but I don’t think I ever will.

Perhaps, just giving voice to the questions is enough. Perhaps, just speaking from what’s true inside myself is enough. Perhaps, in some small way, that physical act alone emboldens others to give voice to what’s true within themselves.

What’s the voice inside you that’s asking to be heard?

So, I began studying with the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET). WSET Level 1 was approachable, teaching me basic pairing principles and key regions. It was fun, so I kept going. Level 2 expanded my knowledge, culminating in mildly nerve-wracking exams that left me with a sense of pride. So, I kept going. In Level 3, things got serious. The material was dense. I sought out a mentor to coach me through tastings and theory. I sat my tasting and written exams, unsure if I’d pass. When I did, I was certain that was enough.

Several years later (perhaps when the amnesia of Level 3 had set in), I enrolled in the WSET Level 4 Diploma, the highest, most rigorous credential offered. The journey that followed consumed the better part of three years of my life.

Every week and weekend, my free time was spent studying: attending lectures, reading dry encyclopedic wine books, drilling flashcards, studying maps, practicing blind tasting, writing wine analyses and tasting notes in timed, exam conditions. My exams were held exclusively in Napa, necessitating flights every few months. “Oooh, Napa! That sounds amazing!” my friends would say. Yeah, no. Think: less vineyards and sunshine, more Hampton Inn conference room in a strip mall. Not exactly a glamorous origin story.

Along the way, I was stressed. I complained. People noticed. “You seem miserable,” friends would ask. “Why are you doing this? What’s your end game?”

My answer was the same every time: I don’t know. I’m just curious. I want to learn. I don’t have an end game, but I’ll never have one if I don’t keep going.

I didn’t have a better answer. And for a long time, it bothered me. Because here’s the honest truth: part of my motivation was the gold star. The achievement of a certification. The A-plus feeling you get when you pass an exam with flying colors. It’s always been engrained in how I operate. I won’t pretend otherwise.

But underneath that was something else. A pull I couldn’t fully explain.

The Art Appraiser, the Argentine Artifacts, and the Art of Inquiry

My ex sister-in-law has been one of my closest friends since middle school. I went on to marry her brother, have a child with him, and get a divorce. Our friendship suffered some hits along the way. But it never broke. Time passed, wounds healed, and as the years went by our friendship blossomed again.

My sister is an art dealer and appraiser. One day, while appraising art in someone’s home, she noticed something unusual: a vast array of Argentine gaucho artifacts. Her curiosity got the best of her. She had to ask.

The owner explained: he acquired his collection over many trips to his vineyard in Argentina’s Uco Valley. He told her about the wines, the people, and the memories forged with family and friends.

“Sounds like a dream,” she responded.

“Is it your dream?” he asked. “Because we’re selling.”

She texted me to share the story. I got chills. The kind that signal you’re on to something.

“We’ve gotta do this.” I said.

And so it began.

A Foretold Destination: The Uco Valley

My sister, her partner, my husband and I flew to Argentina to inspect the land and make a decision. It was a chilly June day, fall in Argentina. We stood on rocky, unplanted earth, gazing out at the snow-capped Andes erupting from the horizon. We looked at each other and said almost simultaneously, “Yep. This is happening.”

So many forces converged to bring us to that moment. A middle-school friendship that outlasted a divorce. A birthday that my sister’s partner and I share. A happenstance appraisal of Argentine artifacts. Years of grueling wine study with no clear destination in sight. It all felt like kismet. It all felt… Foretold.

And so our brand was born: Foretold. Our wine brand represents the vision of four dreamers, brought together by destiny and a touch of magic

The Next Step in a Foretold Journey

Our vines are still young, fledgling Malbec and Chardonnay just beginning to take shoot upwards through the earth. But, that’s not stopping us from bringing our vision to life now. This May, Foretold will release its first wines, sourcing grapes from neighboring growers to produce a rosé, a white blend, and a Cabernet Franc.

We’re still figuring it all out, slogging through the hurdles of import, distribution, and retail. But we’re getting there. And if this journey has taught us anything, it’s that intuition and vision have a way of landing you exactly where you’re meant to be.

The Lessons of Hindsight

If you had told me after my first WSET certification, or in the slog of Diploma studies, that someday I would own a vineyard in Argentina, I would have laughed in your face. If you had told me in the midst of my divorce that my sister-in-law and I would rekindle our friendship and start a business together with our partners, I would have raised an eyebrow. Yet here we are.

In the depths of a challenge, it’s impossible to see beyond what’s right in front of you – whether that’s a wine flashcard, a divorce decree, or a pair of Argentine gaucho chaps. But, sometimes, all you need is that voice within, compelling you to push forward, to ask the next question, to inquire more deeply. It’s not always about seeing the destination. Sometimes, you don’t have a plan. Sometimes, all you have is the chills.

That’s what Foretold is. Not just a wine brand. It’s proof of what becomes possible when you follow your intuition without demanding it justify itself first. Honor the voice that propels you, even when you can’t explain why, even when you seem a little lost to everyone watching.

Sometimes the end game reveals itself only after you’ve arrived.

Foretold wines will drop this May. Once we figure out how the heck we can sell them to you, I’ll let you know. Until then, enjoy the journey.

This year, I abandoned my exam-level conditions. As I began considering my goals and aspirations, I took a step back and thought, “What if I don’t have any goals? What happens then?” The nervousness I felt in posing the question to myself was a cue that I was on the right track. What if, instead of driving towards some well-defined ambition, I simply followed what energizes me, whether in marketing, wine, technology, mindfulness, AI, adventures, or any space in between? This framing felt both terrifying and liberating.

From Goal Obsession To Open-Ended Curiosity

For decades, I treated goal planning like a meticulous process. Color-coded bullet journals, monthly and quarterly check-ins, metrics for everything from revenue targets to personal development milestones. I was suffocating my own capacity for discovery.

As I’ve been pruning my old habits and elaborate frameworks, three insights have emerged thus far.

The Invisible Cost of Complex Goal Systems

Years of intricate goal-setting created tunnel vision I didn’t recognize until I stepped away. When every choice was filtered through predetermined objectives, I missed serendipitous connections and collaborative opportunities. Research shows that curiosity improves leadership effectiveness and team performance. Dropping my relentless goals focus has freed mental space for more nuanced judgment calls, deeper connections, more creativity, and joyful spontaneity that inflexible metrics would have filtered out.

From Proving Worth To Embodying It

During a particularly honest moment of self-reflection, I realized that many of my goals have been architected for the sake of proving my worth to myself and others. Instead, I needed to embody a new truth: that my worth is inherent, not earned. This mindset shift has transformed the rhythm of my daily work and where I choose to point my focus. Instead of checking boxes to validate my competence, I’ve started saying yes to the projects and pursuits that feel genuinely energizing. I’ve started saying no to perceived priorities driven purely by status or optics. As a result, my voice as a leader has grown stronger, more confident, and more self-possessed.

Curiosity As An Operating System For Today’s Landscape

Relinquishing the grip of goals has made more space for curiosity. As I’ve leaned further into this mindset, I’ve begun to see curiosity as a personal operating system advantage, particularly in today’s landscape. From my vantage point as a MarTech leader, AI is fundamentally upending the game. We’re in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime evolution of digital engagement, data, and technology, and what it means for companies and brands to deliver against consumer expectations. From my vantage point as a sommelier, AI has completely transformed the way in which wine nerds study, evaluate, and recommend wines. Whether in the board room or the tasting room, I am observing a daily grappling with how we navigate an unknown future. In these settings, curiosity is the salve. Nobody can fully predict the future of how AI will change our lives and businesses. Instead, we must approach today’s moment with open-ended wonder, mixed with deep-seated instincts born from years of expertise.

An Invitation to Engage... or Why On Earth Am I Writing This

As I’m retraining the vines of my mind to grow in new directions, I’m also rewiring how I choose to engage. This substack is an example of my practice in action. Kat of years past would be quick to delineate the end game of this space, to get clear on what she’s seeking to accomplish and how long it’ll take to achieve. But, the reality is that I can’t possibly know my end game here. What I do know is that I crave more space to reflect and connect on the topics I’m curious about - marketing, wine, technology, AI, mindfulness, and all the mess in the middle. My hope is to root this space in what matters to me, and perhaps along the way, uncork an idea or an inspiration for others, too.