A sea of bad choices

 Earthcam is something. To search through webcams stationed all over the world is quite fun. I love watching the sunrise in the US, my home. I lived there for about 4 years but it stuck in my heart and won't let go. While the country is far from a place I would want to live now (it's pretty chaotic and creepy there), I really feel homesick from time to time. I miss the stores, the roads, the nature and maybe just some of the mentality the people can have. You can be anything if you work for it (not true for everyone really, but the idea is nice). The Netherlands is made up of lazy. As a kid you are made to do what everyone else. Don't stand out. Don't think your better at anything. And if someone needs help, it's the kids at the bottom. It has changed a bit over the years but it still remains in the general public opinion. It's so different from what I learned in the US. There they told me everyone had a talent. I remember people praising me for things I was good at. Helping me find that which I was good at. How had my life turned out if we had never moved back? I might have been amazing. Now I'm drowning in fear. Fear of missing a life, fear of not doing what I should, fear of not helping my kids correctly, fear that my husband will leave because I have not found myself, fear of myself, my body and my thoughts, fear of being afraid.  

It's that moment that I realized I became what I despised as a teenager that everything went terribly downhill. 

I was going to have an amazing job, become rich and important. I was going to drive an awesome car, nothing old. Have a wonderful modern house. Not ever live in Friesland or go outside the Randstad. I would travel all over the world, not only by webcam. And now I am a stay at home mom... I work in my husbands company. I live in Friesland in an old house that we have no money to make decent. I drive my husbands car, which he inherited from his grandfather. I became that which I hated. Even the area sucks. I love trees and pretty much hate water... I love mountains so I live in the flattest part of the Netherlands looking over a sea of grass. Nothing to see but birds, and not even much of those. 

My life consists of bad choices. How can I change that?

 

Be who you are, but who is that?

 Work on the things that you love. Be who you are. Find your passion in life. 

But what if you don't find it. What if you never know who you are. Can't seem to find anything you really love. It seems such a positive thing to say, especially to kids. My dad used to say Don't worry about what work you are going to do, just study what you really enjoy. Together with: you can be anything you want to be. 

True, I could study anything because I had done the right classes in High School so the world remained wide open. I just never realized that really freaked me out. I cannot choose with so many options. And this remained the case. Far into my adult life and I still have no clue who I am or what I want to do. So what happens? I stay rooted on the spot, not knowing which way to go. 

I moved a year ago and that was when it hit me. After I got my High School diploma I could do anything I wanted, accept Biblical Studies. (Ironically I did go check that out, fascinating :) After getting lost in the options I did what my mom would have studied if she had gotten the chance, which was Anthropology. It took years because it really wasn't my thing but I was afraid to switch to a different university. 

And now, almost hitting 40, I have a masters in Anthropology, no job experience to speak of (unless you include mother, but no one ever does) and so have gone from having the world wide open to it being behind all those closed doors. 

And thus I sit here alone in my daughters room feeling mentally and psychically old, tired and sick. Damn that was not what I had imagined my life to be 20 years ago....

No pressure

Seeing the pretty things in life

And taking a picture of it.

So instagram...

@SquarenOne

Being present with all your crap

 I went running today with Headspace talking to me. It kept saying: Be in the moment. Don't think about your last run, don't compare, just be present. I try, I really do but eventually I'm just thinking: I can still run. I seem to have more stamina than before. But my hands still feel weird. Maybe I'm just cramped. But doesn't cramp feel painful. Why don't I feel painful. And if it isn't cramp then what is it?! And that's when I am certainly NOT in the moment.

Really I am never in the moment. Being present and at ease is really, really hard. I am also really impatient. If I do this than why does it not fix everything right away. I tried... so hello... fix.

At the moment I also have a course in hypochondria on my computer. It tries to help me see things different, less dramatic. I can do that. That is easy but you have to start believing those new thoughts, more than the old ones. But that is really, really hard too. 

Basically life is not easy at the moment. It is just plain hard. So I try not to be so hard on myself. But if I could do that easily I don't think I would be in this situation.

Square One

 Or maybe none.

20 years ago I got sick and I don't think I ever really got better. Not the way I was before. It might be my own fault, partially. It might not. Who knows really. 

About three years ago I woke up and was fine. Remembering that really shows how not ok I have been for so very long. I don't want to wake up worrying every morning about how my body is functioning. About how I might not be able to use my legs/hands/brain/eyes...etc within considerable time. It makes life too hard. So much so that ironically it starts looking like a serious outcome if I just died. That is not good.

So as any respecting person these days that is a great moment to start a blog and share your crap with the world.