These days with a child to take care off, a full time job, a 2nd job, and all kinds of other stuff going on in my life, life just sometimes seems to swallow me whole and spit me out a week later without any warning… Like I said the other day: I sometimes just feel like I can’t keep up with the pace of life…

Sometimes life just “happens”, you know?

It started when I downloaded the What’sApp application on my iPhone the other day to be able to send messages back and forth with Jill and on my contact list of people who are using the application one of my friends that I hadn’t seen for a while showed up. I sent him a message and we got back in touch and messaged back and forth about all the stuff that has been happening in our lives lately. And we are now in the process of finding a date to meet up so I can catch up with him and his wonderful wife.

And then my thoughts wandered off to a mutual friend of ours, who actually used to be one of my best best friends until a few years ago. We kind of had a blow out about something, our friendship went sort of bust, we tried to reconnect before summer and it never happened…

So this afternoon I sent him a text message to ask him how he was doing and he replied instantly… and asked me to come over for drinks and catching up… As it happened I had to take The Kid to basketball practise near him, so I dropped off The Kid, and then went over to his place for drinks…

From the moment I walked in it was like nothing had ever happened and we reconnected like we had never been apart. I felt instantly comfortable, we had a drink, we talked, we laughed, we reminisced, it was good…

I learned that good friendships are for keeps. I learned that sometimes you just have to get past your grievances and let go of shit that happened in the past because the good by far surpassed the bad…You can always get passed your pride, your busy times, take initiative and reconnect. And if you are real friends, you will welcome eachother back in your lives. No matter what. It just takes reaching out…

I re-gained 2 great friends, and you know what? It feels great!

So here’s to FRIENDSHIP!

It’s a weird feeling. Aside from being very sad about her passing, it’s just a weird feeling to know that on my dad’s side of the family there is, if I am not mistaken, only the youngest brother left. All other siblings passed away in the past 13-14 years, including my own father… They were ages 49 till about late 60′s when they died… That’s a scary thought… That’s way too young to go…

I say “if I am not mistaken” as we are not in close contact with my Dad’s side of the family anymore. I won’t bore you with the details but it has to do with stuff that happened when my Mom remarried. Right now, both my sister, my Mom and myself are mostly past it. Of course I can only speak for myself truly, but I am not even angry anymore. A few years ago I decided that being upset and angry was costing me too much energy and pain… So I got past it in the respect that I am not angry anymore, I am just done with it. I don’t hate the relatives of my Dad, I don’t hold a grudge anymore, I just choose to take myself out of that equation and not be in touch with them anymore than I have to. It’s a self-protective thing and I am pretty sure that The Mom and The Sis feel pretty much the same…

My Mom was still in touch with this particular aunt as it was one of her girlfriends when she was in her early 20′s. My aunt was quite a character, quite the drama queen I might add, but a good woman at heart too.

And even though I had not seen her for a long time and was not in frequent contact with her… I still mourn her death. Cos I still remember the good times when we were kids, teens, young adults and they were all still very much part of our lives… Even though she was quite a character, as was her (late) husband, we loved visiting.

Even though I had not seen her for a long time and not spoken to her for ages… I miss her already…

And it’s a weird thing to realize that a part of your life that you knew so very well, aunts and uncles… Are slowly diminishing, one by one, until soon that part of your life is non-existent… And I look at The Mom, losing another one of her girlfriends, and realize how much that must suck, to get older and have to go through that…

I learned that you cannot win with people that have trust issues, general trust issues. I have learned that you can tell people like that you are honest and sincere till you are blue in the face. It doesn’t matter. In their heads distrust is carefully lodged and it doesn’t matter what you say or do, they have their own truth and they will never believe you.

Someone from “the past” contacted me last night and started saying they were missing me. I reached out and told this person that I was willing to see if we could be friends but that this person had hurt me right before we fell out of touch. That I had worked through that, and was willing to see if we could be friends and that this person could let me know if that is what they wanted.

I was contacted through email and almost right off the bat I was confronted with heinous distrust again over issues that we had long discussed before. Things that I have always been honest about and that this person chooses not to believe. The way this person acted last night has hurt me to my core, again. And I hate it that I let this person hurt me again. Do NOT contact me saying you miss me, still love me and then lay all this shit on me, again. If YOU have serious trust issues, which you do, you need to work on those and not lay them on me or anyone else.

As one of my other friends said to me last night: It is a shame that some people are so jaded, suspicious and even maybe paranoid at times. But really, until they work on those issues and learn that even in this world, the way it is, people cán actually be trusted, there is no way to “win” with people like that. I think if you start a relationship or a friendship with someone, the start out point needs to be that you feel that you cán trust that person. If you can’t do that, for whatever reason (some totally understandable, don’t get me wrong, but you should really attempt to not judge every new person based on past experiences, in my opinion), then you might as well not get into it to start with.

Trust is a tricky thing.  But it’s an essential ingredient for a relationship or a friendship to succeed and I wish that this person would get that.

Yeah, so I had a bad night. I found myself defending myself over stuff that I didn’t do. Defending things that I had said. Explaining till I was blue in the face that this person was wrong. It hurt, and I hate that this person was able to hurt me, again, like this. I still feel sorry for this person. It must be horrible when you feel you cannot trust people. I genuinly hope this person manages to work on that and find a way out of it, as I think this person is missing out on a lot of good stuff in life, acting and feeling this way.

I won’t be in that life no more though. I can’t allow myself to get hurt over and over again by someone who chooses to not believe me, even if I have been and am completely honest and sincere with them. I can’t deal with that kind of distrust and I really think I don’t deserve to be treated like that.

So sayonara to you… I hope you have a good life… Please stay out of mine… Too much negative energy… I don’t need it. I’ll just chalk this one up as a learning experience…

You see, my life is richly filled with activities. It’s not like I am hermitting or withering away here. I am busy holding down 2 jobs, taking care of The Kid and, although it comes in “waves”, a pretty nice social life with friends and family. Thing is, there has been something missing for a long time, and though I get through life fine by myself, deep inside I do miss it. Every single day.

I miss having someone to share the basic stuff with. I really miss having a partner.

Everyone keeps telling me that I do great by myself and that someday it will happen. And it’s not like I am pessimistic and think my chances are over, because I don’t. And though I am not actively looking (besides, what the hell is actively looking anyway, really, cos I’ve tried the dating sites and shit and well, trust me, it’s not for me), it’s not like I am sitting around catatonically waiting for “it” to happen.  I do go out, I do meet new people, I do engage in all that stuff. I guess I have just not really met him. And I do very well by myself, I just would prefer not to, which is a big difference. I have proven to do well by myself, fine, we know that now. That’s a good thing and I appreciate that.

The thing that hit me last weekend though is that what I miss mostly is not the physical side, the sex, or anything. It’s intimacy. Trust me, no worries, I love sex, but I can do fine without that for a while, if I have to. It’s the true intimacy, the loving care intimacy, that I miss. The being able to tell someone how your day has been, someone to lean on, someone to talk to, soft loving kisses on lips, an arm around me, a look, putting my head on his chest and listening to him breathe, encouragement, love, care… That is the stuff that I am having a hard time living without. I am so done with going this road alone…

I can get “just sex” if I want to, but thing is, I did that for a while. Several years in fact. I don’t regret any second of it. But I am at that crossroads that “just sex” is not cutting it for me anymore. Not even “while I am waiting” for The Right Guy. I can’t do it. I need more, I wánt more, and I can’t settle for less anymore.

I guess it is phases you go through. And though at some point after the divorce things like that were enough for me, they are no longer. I know that nothing is perfect. I’ve been in plenty relationships to know that everything has it’s pro’s and con’s. But after being single for the better part of 9 years, I am ready to give it a shot again, dammit. In fact I have been for a while now.

I know this feeling of loneliness, this feeling of a huge void in my life, is at a high right now, due to having been by myself for 3 weekends in a row. And frankly, being at the wedding of my friends was awesome but also very confrontational (as I had expected it to be). And I know that it will subside to an acceptable level again in a while. But I also know that it won’t go away. I have a wonderful son, a great family, awesome friends, and they are the absolute best. Always there for me, and I am very grateful for that, as I realize there is people getting through life with much less. And seriously, I love you all to bits. But there is that part of life that, however much all of you would want to, you can’t fill for me…

Sometimes a girl just needs a kiss, a hug, a romantic embrace, a sweet whisper in her ear…

So… yeah… I miss “him”… I don’t know WHO the hell “him” is (yet), but I am sure he must be out there. Just a matter of finding him… in the right place, at the right time… Right?

All of them, but one 9 year old boy. A Dutch boy. A boy who lost his Mom, his Dad and his big brother in the plane crash. A boy who was now in a Libian hospital having multiple surgery on his badly broken legs, who could not clearly remember what had happened, who was surrounded by hospital staff that speaks a language he can’t understand.

Right after finally one of the Dutch Embassy staff was allowed to go see him and find out the identity of this Dutch boy, and it was confirmed that it was indeed a Dutch child, one of the tackiest Dutch papers around did something astounding…

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not against journalists or journalism in general. Gawd knows that investigative journalism has opened up many cans of worms that people, organizations, governments rather would’ve kept shut. It’s done much good. It’s brought so much to the surface that the world needed to know.

But what good can come out of picking up the phone, posing as someone close to the boy, calling one of the Dr’s of this young boy, have them hand the phone to him and ask him how he is doing, whether he was already informed (and of course at that time he had not) that he was in a plane crash and that he was the sole survivor. Whether he realized that meant that his parents and brother are no longer alive?

And then splattering the story on your front page and wondering what all the backlash and fuss is all about? I mean WTF? Seriously!?!? THAT is good investigative journalism? And you are now wondering why half of Dutchyland is bashing you for having no scruples, for just being cruel, and cancelling their subscription? You are now bashing Dutch celebrities for calling upon the Dutch public to cancel their subscriptions and protesting your actions?

I already thought that particular paper is the crapiest one in all of Dutchyland but right now I just never want to set eyes upon, let alone touch, a copy of that shit paper. What your journalist did to that boy is every level of cruel and then some. This boy has survived something that to most of us is one of the scariest things we can imagine. He has to deal with losing his closest family in that disaster. He is the sole surviver out of 104 people in that plane. He is hurting physically and mentally.

For Gawd’s Sake: Leave The Boy Alone!

Leave him alone to deal with that in peace. Let him be with his aunt and uncle who are taking him back to Dutchyland today and let him heal without the pressure of the media and your fucking cruel actions. And pray, pray, pray, p.r.a.y. that there is no such thing as karma that can come back and bite you in the cruel shit for brains ass…

And Ruben? I wish you all the best. I can’t imagine what it is like to have to endure this. I hope you manage to somehow find peace and be able to be surrounded by people you love and that love you for the rest of your life.

Honesty and trust are big things with me, to me. In any part of life but especially in relationships. And those are just the 2 things that were the demise of my marriage, and that have been responsible for the huge slaps in the face in fairly all of the dating and relationship adventures I ventured out on in the past few years. Why is it so hard for the men I date, or am in a relationship, with to be honest?

Trust me, I too have my flaws and made my share of mistakes in the past. People make mistakes. People learn from their mistakes (or at least I would hope so). This is how I know that these two things are so very important to me. It’s something that I am very up front about to people I am in any kind of relationship with, especially when I start dating: communicate and be honest, please. If we don’t want the same thing, or you have changed your mind about us, I’d rather know about it than have my trust betrayed.

It’s not worked out well for me in the past years, up till recently, and here I find myself, single, smacked in the face by dishonesty, and trusting men where I shouldn’t have. Having built a huge big fat wall around me, that is now finally paralyzing me from getting back up and trying again. I want to break it down. I want to get out there again, and date. I just don’t know how. Well, I know hów theoretically, I am just too fucking scared to do so. I am so afraid to set myself up for hurt again. So instead I go through the motions of daily life and hide from anything remotely date-like.

I’ve been seriously considering venturing out on one of the Dutch dating sites again. I made myself a profile, I activated it, I looked around a bit, but I just can’t bring myself to actually doing something. I look at the kind of profiles I have read so many times before. Of men that seem really nice and then when meeting up for a date, turn out to be nothing like they said they were. Something that in the past has happened to me more times than I care to remember.

So there it is. I am writing it down, publically admitting it. Not in the least to myself: I have been hurt, and I am afraid of getting hurt again. I have always been able to work around that feeling, I have always been able to convince myself that I should get over it, that there must be someone out there, that they can’t all possibly be the same. But right now, for the first time in years, after it happening again and again, I find it impossible to move forward… And it is scaring me… Because for the first time I am afraid that this time the wall is so big, so high, so strong, that it might not be possible for me nor any guy to get it down again…

I know at some point I need to get back “in the saddle” and just give it a shot again. And I know about all the people thinking that there must be someone out there for me, and that this time I might get lucky… And that there are good guys out there…

I know… but right now my heart is under lock and key, and I sit here, on my couch, virogorously hoping that the bad guys didn’t finally fuck up for all the good guys… But honestly, really, right now? I would rather just throw away the key and be sure that I never get hurt again…

And damn… writing this thing down… it actually made me cry…

So I figured if I got a Wallow In My Funk for 24 hrs Before I Get My Ass Kicked pass, I should get you some kind of coupon too. So I did….

Here ya go! Go crazy with it!

(and I now <3 Online Coupon Generator that I found cos I was googling “coupon generator”, heh)

I am going through the motions of yet again closing a door behind me. Of some crap that has been dished out a while ago, including lying and shit, and that I am trying to deal with. I will be fine, I will get over it. That much I know from previous experience.

I feel I am losing grip on something though that usually comes with going through those motions. I am not taking care of myself. I am not eating healthy, I am not watching how much and what I eat. I spend my time out of the office fairly catatonic on the couch or summin. Hermitting my time away, and hardly moving.

And I am starting to put on weight. Which is not that big of a deal perse as I can deal with a few pounds and get them off again. Hell, I slimmed down the equivalent of a complete 10 yr old child from my body once. But the losing grip part sits in the fact that I can feel that I don’t care much about it. That I keep trying to tell myself that it’s not that bad and that I will get to it eventually…

And the not caring bit is the part that is not good. It took me way too long to get away from that to allow myself to slip back into that again. Nobody and nothing is worth that kind of hurt.

So I need to start getting a grip here. Because I know where this will lead if I don’t. I have been there and I have no desire of going back to that place. I know I won’t feel good if I do. Not because of being a few sizes bigger but because I know what that really is: putting on pounds because I don’t feel good abóut myself. Eating because of crap emotions that I am feeling due to someone hurting me. And it pisses me off, that life-stuff and love-stuff can do that to a person. I am stronger than that, dammit!

So I declare today: Get a Grip Day. I know I am still in that part of the process that I can. It’s Spring. I need to eat healthy, move around more, go outside, meet up with people, have fun. Find the fun part of my life again and own it! Yeah, that’s what I have to do! Let’s get this show on the road again!

I have this girlfriend who just got out of a bad relationship (and yes, it’s a girlfriend, this is not about me, guys). I will spare you the details, but she totally lost herself in this relationship. There was no physical or mental abuse really, but she completely lost herself, her sense of self and her feeling of self worth. She had a hard time getting out of the relationship. She kept ending it, he kept pulling her back in. It’s over now.

Tons of things happened in her life after that, some of them related to this guy, some non-related and ended with her head completely screwed up. She’s taking medication right now and is in therapy for it. Which is good I think. However, part of the therapy and especially the way she handles it, worries me. Her therapist gave the OK for her to go on some therapy weekend retreats. They are the kind where you tell your story to the other people there, in sessions in a room filled with fluffy pillows, hugging, crying and comforting (I am not dissing it here, just stating what happens in this kind of therapy weekends). It’s all a very soft and comforting approach which, in the case of my girlfriend and most other people there, releases a lot of emotion and makes for feeling a very tight bond with the people that are there. This in itself, though it is not my thing, is not the thing that worries me. If that works for ya, it’s fine by me.

What does worry me is that time and time again she comes back from those weekend “in love” and ends up being in a relationship with one of the guys she met over there for a while. Those are álways relationships in which she ends up getting the short end of the stick and losing herself again. As they are relationships with men that are usually in the same way or sometimes even worse than she is herself. Men who are looking for someone to lean on, for someone to make them feel better and sometimes even someone to take them out of the harsh reality they are in. And that worries me. As it takes her away from the thing that, as I see it, she should rather be doing. Rather than sticking her head in the sand and hide in eachother’s arms, I think she should be trying to find herself again. I think she should be with people that can enable her to spend her energy in finding herself, finding her strenght back, find a way to cope with all that has been happening to her and a way to incorporate it into her life and be able to move on.

Now, I have never been on anti-depressant or anxiety meds. I have never been in therapy. It doesn’t mean that I have not known times of severe hardship, cos Gawd knows I have. I have just chosen to work through it by myself as I felt that was the right way for me and fortunately it was. This does nót mean I don’t believe in taking meds or going through therapy: I think everyone should do what works best for them. And without having experienced it, I do realize that even being on meds or in therapy is hard. It’s no walk in the park, I understand that.

What I do know and believe is that to be able to be in any kind of relationship you need to have some level of acceptance of yourself and the shit that has happened in your life. You have to be able to be yourself. You have to have some level of understanding of your emotions and how to deal with them. You have to be happy with yourself up to some crucial point (not completely, cos which one of us is always completely happy with themselves and their lives, there is always room for improvement, right?). There needs to be some level of emotional balance, I think.

My friend does not see any problem in hooking up with man after man from her therapy weekend sessions. Even though it never lasts for more than a few months and she always ends up getting hurt and back to square one where losing herself in a relationship is concerned. I have tried to tell her that what is important right now, as I see it, is to work through her own problems before she even thinks about having a relationship and being there for someone else. Not just for herself but for her 3 kids as well. That as I see it, it’s not possible to love someone else if you don’t love yourself up to some level. That she is a great woman, with a few great kids, and that she deserves to look in the mirror and LIKE herself and that she deserves to put herself and her kids first in life…

She told me that it was easy for me to say that as “I am strong and she is not, and that’s just the way it is“. Well, you know: Fuck That! I know that many of my friends perceive me as a strong woman, and I get it thrown in my face like this a lot. I guess maybe I am up to a point. But I have not always been like this, and everyone seems to forget about that. Even the people who have actually witnessed it from up close. I came from a deep deep lonely shitty place after my marriage. I too have had to work very hárd at that. And even though I might’ve done it without meds nor therapy, that doesn’t mean that it was easy for me. I have had to work at myself and put myself and The Kid first to get where I am. And all through that I had very bad times. Times during which I didn’t think I was going to make it. Damn, I have shed some tears in my lifetime. I still have those times every now and then, when life just throws you curve ball after curve ball and you think enough is enough. Don’t let the strong front fool you. I might be able to mostly cut it in daily life, but this isn’t exactly the life I envisioned myself to be in. But it happened this way. Do you think that I envisioned myself single with a 12 yr old boy, skint half of the time, working my ass off in 2 jobs at 40 years old? Of course not! But it’s where I am right now. Shit happens. It’s not like I am in total emotional balance and happy with myself and my life all the time, but it is what it is and I am dealing with it the best way that I can.

And if there is one thing that the path I went on has taught me, it is to believe in myself. And if I can do that, trust me, anyone of you can. It has also taught me that it’s important to love myself for who and what I am. Including my flaws. Nobody is perfect. I take life mostly as it comes, I try not to waste energy on things, situations or people that I can’t change and to spend that energy on the things that I dó have and make me happy. That might sometimes be just the little things in life. Also, I feel I can’t love someone else, I can’t be there for someone else, be it my son, my family, my friends, or a prospective partner, if I don’t think I am worth fighting for myself.

So… is that a crooked way of thinking? That it worries me that my girlfriend keeps putting herself on the back seat for men? That she keeps coming back from those therapy weekends “in love”. That I think she is confusing “love” with a sense of connection or even just shift of focus or flight into helping someone else? That I feel that she needs to step away from the relationship part of life until SHE is back on her feet again emotionally? That I feel that she is worth fighting for and that even though I know it’s a hard road to be on, it is the road she needs to take right now?

I don’t know… I will be there for her, no matter what. Because she is my friend. But that doesn’t mean that I have to stand by and let her get herself up shitcreek all the time and like it, right? I know that ultimately she has to do it herself, has to see it for what it is herself. But I will still “be” there… I will not get in her face about it all the time, but if she asks me how I feel about it… she will still get an honest answer out of me. She might not like it, but I at least owe it to her to be honest, I think.

Even though I don’t know her personally, my thoughts today are with N. She is a colleague and friend of Lady Penelope who is today saying goodbye to her longtime partner, the love of her life, a great guy, whose time came up waaaaayyyy too soon and waaaayyyy to young. I wish her all the strength she needs to get through this hardship, and tons of DutchyHugz…

And my thoughts are also with my friend Eva. Who today will find out, after getting a second opinion, if her son’s brain tumor is indeed a pineoblastoma. Which is a stage IV brain tumor and will need an operation followed by some of the vilest chemotherapy and radiation possible… I know she will be glued to the phone today waiting for the news. And we know that whatever happens, it can’t be good news, and the upcoming times are going to be extremely tough on her, her son, and the rest of the family. Big fat smooch, sweetie. And you know where I am if you need to blow off steam