I Built ZEHN Because I Was Lonely - 05
50 TABS OPEN - ISSUE 05
By Tanika Chapman - Founder, ZEHN Wellness
Published May 24, 2026 - 4 min read
I started ZEHN because I was lonely. I need to say that out loud because I've been dancing around it for months.
I miss being in the car
I keep thinking about this one feeling. Being in a car full of your favourite people on a Friday night heading somewhere that doesn't matter because the company is the whole point. Windows down. Music up. Nobody checking the time or their emails or whether they've got enough energy. Just going.
That used to be every weekend. Camping trips. Road trips. Hiking. Spontaneous plans that turned into the best memories we have. Nobody had to check their calendar or find a babysitter or weigh up whether they could be bothered. Everyone was in. Everyone was keen. That was just how it worked.
I'm in my 30s and I still want that. The laughs. The adventures. The stupid ideas at 10pm that somehow happen by midnight. The kind of fun that doesn't need to be planned three weeks in advance and confirmed twice.
I don't think there's anything wrong with me for still wanting that. But somewhere along the way, wanting it started to feel childish. Like I should have grown out of it by now. Like the adult version of life is supposed to be quieter and I should be okay with that.
I'm not okay with that.
The gap
There are two times in your life when community is handed to you. School. And kids.
At school your friends are just there. You don't earn them. You don't schedule them. Friendship is automatic.
Then there's the other end. The mothers group. The school gate crew. The Saturday sport parents. A whole new circle that forms around your children and suddenly you've got a village again.
But in between? There's this gap that nobody talks about. Your 20s and 30s. The years where you're not in a classroom anymore and you don't have kids yet and there's no structure handing you a community. You have to go and find it yourself. And nobody teaches you how.
That's where I've been living for the last decade.
My people are real. They're just not here.
I need to be clear about something. I have the best people around me. Mitch. My animals. Best friends who I'd go to war for. A core friend group that I love deeply.
This isn't about them not being enough. They are. This is about me choosing to build a life somewhere that's an hour from all of them.
They're in Melbourne. Mitch and I are on the Peninsula. My family are interstate. The last time our core friends were all in the same room was January. Five months. That's not a friendship problem. That's a geography problem. And geography, over time, is a loneliness problem.
The group chat used to be "who's in for Saturday?" Now it's quiet. Not because anyone stopped caring. Because everyone's tired and an hour each way feels like a lot after the week they've had. Nobody killed it. It just faded. And that might be the saddest part. There was no falling out. No moment. Just life getting in the way so slowly that nobody noticed until it had already happened.
Then this happened
Three weeks into having our studio open, people started staying after class. Sitting by the fire. Talking. Not the usual smile-and-leave. Real conversations with people they'd just met.
And a few of them said things that stopped me…
"I don't really have many friends down here."
"I moved to the Peninsula a couple of years ago and I still don't feel like I belong."
"I've been looking for something like this for ages but I didn't know what it was."
That's me. That's literally my story. I just didn't have the words for it until someone else said them first.
They're in the gap too. Still wanting the feeling of being around people who are actually present. Still wanting the laughs and the spontaneity and the sense that you belong somewhere beyond your own house. A quiet, low-level loneliness that doesn't look like loneliness from the outside because they've got a partner and a job and a life that looks fine on paper.
Why I built this
I built ZEHN because I needed a place to belong on the Peninsula. Not in Melbourne where my friends are. Not interstate where my family is. Here. On a Tuesday. Without planning it three weeks in advance.
I needed the feeling of being in the car on a Friday night. Not the car itself. The feeling. That something good is about to happen and you're surrounded by people who are all in.
Community and wellness are the two most overused words on the internet right now. Every brand says them. Most of the time what they mean is a Facebook group or a branded hashtag. But what's happening at ZEHN isn't a buzzword. It's a farm. Cold mornings and warm fires and a room full of people who are all quietly dealing with the same thing. And nowhere else to go with it.
Three weeks in and something has shifted. The same faces are coming back. Names are sticking. The small talk is getting smaller and the real talk is getting bigger. I'm starting to feel like maybe I've finally stayed still long enough for the roots to take.
I didn't build a community because I had one. I built it because I didn't have one here. And it turns out a lot of people in this gap have been waiting for the same thing.
They just needed somewhere to go.
T x
50 Tabs Open is a blog series by Tanika Chapman, founder of ZEHN Wellness. It's about building a brand, figuring things out in public, and having way too many thoughts at once.
@zehnwellness | zehnwellness.com
