Picking up

Hello dear readers,

Sorry that I am not the most cheerful writer the last few months but I am hoping I can give you some good news in the coming week. I could start with saying that my flatmates and I bought me some more time yesterday. After our real estate agent told us it was ok that another person and 2 dogs joins the household. It might be too early to say but I might have some good news about a job in a week or so, but I do not dare to celebrate just yet. I will certainly keep you updated if there are good news.

How wonderful it would be to be able to say, hey there is good news! Yesterday was a small uplift, I also went to Haarlem centrum basking in the sun a bit with a good friend. It was good to laugh and discover new cafés in the old centre as we strolled up and down the streets I am starting to know very well by now. Again we went to the park and I got to meet some goats and an alpaca! It was a good day all in all and I am starting to feel somewhat hopeful about getting out of this rut.

Furthermore, I am doing some investigation into how I could start my own business these days. Once I have enough money in the bank I will go for it! Because I really want to be my own boss at some point. How awesome would that be? To have something to look forward to again is quite nice, but first I need to sort out the job situation.

I cannot emphasize enough how lucky I am with my friends. They are the sole reason I keep going and keep trying not to loose myself in all my struggles. There is always a small part of me that feels like I do not deserve such loveliness, yet I know that is just my demons that I carry with me. At some point I hope I can dump those demons in a ditch and that they stay there. Clearly, I am not the only person who at times have a low self-esteem or has her doubts about her own abilities and worth. Still though I wish it out of my life this darkness that show it´s ugly head when I am in trouble. A friend told me as I get older I will stop feeling like this, I hope he was right. Because honestly I am so done feeling stressed and useless. 

Yesterday I spoke to my very good friend Ruby on Skype, it was so nice to let the conversation rave on for 2 hours as if we were in the same room like old times. I miss that lovely lass so much sometimes, she is like a sister to me and has probably seen me at my worst and at my best. She knows me better than anyone, because there was never a pressure to be anything except myself around her. Few people have such an important role in my life and I hope we never grow apart. 

Tomorrow I am hoping for good weather, because I am gonna clean out the house properly and go to town and meet some people at my favourite café. Sunday I have a full programme and goodbye drinks for a lovely lady as well. So hopefully the weekend is sunny and light to keep the good spirit and so I can head to Bloemendaal National Park to refresh my soul a bit and work on my plan for how to sort out this mess of a life ;)

Until next time peeps,

xx Viking

                                (Google Images, 2016)

Shattered months

Hello Dear Readers,

Thank you for all the sweet feedback on my last posts. Though it was not really helpful posts in my opinion, but more personal ones it warms my heart to see so much positive feedback.

I am still searching for a job and still have had no luck in finding one yet. I swear every-time someone ask me about it, the stress levels rise from 10- 150. Because I have no other option than to find something, if I don´t well... then that sucks for me I guess. Not just a little but a lot lot! Since I was 16 I have managed on my own and I never thought I would end up in this pathetic and desperate search for a job. 

My friends are fabulous in all this, without them I would have not known what to do with myself. In times when family is too busy to understand where I am at, there is nothing more comforting than good friends to lend an ear and possible solutions.

My birthday was kind of goodbye to a life I thought I had sorted a year ago. For the life I wanted but for numerous reasons just slipped through my fingers. It was a kind of goodbye to the Netherlands, if not forever then maybe for sometime. I need to find a way to work out what I will do next here. There are just very few options right now than to stay in this very stressful moment hope for my applications be seen and acted upon. 

Sometimes I wonder how people manage without their family until I realize how alone I really am in this sense. All I ever wanted was for mine to be ok, yet I have come to realize we probably never really will be. Despite how large mine has become it just seems like when we need each other the most, we fail to be there for one another. Communication does seem to pose a large problem and the willingness to understand one another. Maybe I am no better, though I always hoped I was....I tried to be there for people when they needed me. But maybe that is the thing, maybe I was never needed in the first place. My thoughts from young often circled around this subject. As I grew older and moved away I felt needed and wanted somewhere else. That feeling to make a difference in someone´s life was amazing. Priceless in fact, I had never felt so good before and it helped me a great deal. One of the places I felt understood and needed was around animals and people who cared for them as well as helping people with different sorts of addictions and problems. To be needed is a good feeling, but it is also quite a relief to feel understood and loved. To feel you were brought into this world for a purpose and that one is not just a waste of space.

Right now with all this job drama I feel small and useless again and to make matters worse I am not needed. Not needed at all and it feels horrible and lonely somehow and I was hoping it was just my silly traumatized soul.....but I was wrong again I think. It is me on my own again, as if there was ever any choice there , I just hoped there was a choice I suppose.

With that being said I am so glad I have good friends around who wish me to stay and help me when they can. I cannot believe how lucky I have been with them. It truly brings tears to my eyes to know that people who do not even need to be there for me are there for me anyway, just like that without as much as a hesitation.  As low as I have been these last 6 months I have not felt in many many years. It is asking a lot from a friend to be there when shit starts happening, but I also know that the ones who do are the real friends in the end of the day. The only sad fact is that with all that I have been through in my 29 years....I just do not expect it any more, nor do I wish to ask for it.

Feeling shattered and ¨slightly¨ depressed (making it look less serious then it is) that I made all this effort the last months for nothing is not exactly what I had in mind last year. From starting the year so happy to ending it so unhappy is really something I could have not predicted at all. I was so happy a year ago...so very happy. One day I hope from the bottom of my worn out heart, that I will find my way back again. Because being unable to occupy myself with work just is not the best idea for me right now.

Until the update is required peeps, I will have to love you and leave u.

xx Viking

Almost 5 years since the move

Hi Dear Readers,

It is almost 5 years ago since I decided to come to the Netherlands. Ever since I embarked on this journey life has been one big roller coaster of emotions. First I came for the adventure and the man I once held so close to my heart that I let him erase me from his without so much as a second thought. Looking back I know I gave him the choice because I loved him too much not to. No matter what happened I always wanted that to be clear to him, but in the end when I decided it was time to move on and let my heart feel again for another man, well then he made me feel as if I had made that choice....and in a way maybe I did but I did it out of love. It might not have been graceful because I am not graceful. Though sometimes I really wished I was.

This post will be personal, maybe not so much to shed light on my journey but to let myself feel again, just something else than numbness and let go of the slight hint of bitterness that is lurking in parts of my chest these days.

You see I never wished to hurt anyone, but because of how I grew up (without much love) and how I was put together, I have difficulty showing it. I have difficulty dealing with it and for a great part I have difficulty trusting just about anyone. My only means of feeling or letting go of feelings is through writing and through music and to some extent by running or other physical activity. Because I have been hurt by the people most close to me, maybe too many times. I struggle to find the right way of action or expression when I feel things are difficult or when I am afraid of what is to come. So this is needed, this flush of emotion that came over me today just needs to be written. You see I found an old letter from my ex, he sent it to me right before I came to the Netherlands for the first time. I kept it for all these years because it reminded me how much in love we were before I moved to the Netherlands.

What I think now, and maybe that is a subconscious notion I had when I kept the letter; it is important no matter what happens to remember what we felt before the crap started to hit the fan, before the hurting started. When we broke up my world fell apart, I closed myself down for anyone (even my friends), no one got inn and only those who kept reaching out their hands and support stayed behind. I do not blame the friends that left because we all have our struggles to tend to and I was not ready....not ready at all for what was to come.

Slowly but surely I was licking my wounds, after all I just left the man I thought I would spend my whole life with. The man I once admired and loved so much I had no concept of ever loving someone so much ever again or to get hurt so much as I did ever again. When I gave him the choice what to do with our lives it was clear that the intense feelings I had felt for him all those years was definitely not mutual. It was not just the communication that failed, it was more than this and the deep rooted kindness, respect and relative trust I had once seen in our relationship vanished over time but died completely that very day I asked him to choose a path. 

I am not sure exactly when I gave up on making decisions for myself in that relationship but at some point I was not Annie any more and I was even wondering if I ever had been. I knew it was just a matter of time before we would break and when I left my job it was not only the right thing to do but also a test. A test to see if he would stand by MY side like I had done for him when he made independent decisions about his career which affected us both. It was by no means a way to force a person into something he did not want, but rather to see what he wanted and if I meant as much to him as he meant to me.

Somewhere inside I wished so hard he would grab me and say: YOU are the woman of my life and I will stand by you in this! I love you even though I might not always understand. Because that is what love does to people isn´t it? It makes you want to throw yourself into the sea of fire for someone because how you feel without them sucks. Everything feels flat, numb and boring after that...this is what love is.

Well my ex did not love me so there was no fire in the end to toss himself in. And for me who already had made the jump I felt the sudden cold of the icy shower poured over my head whilst sitting in our bedroom and contemplating the news. I had to be strong, I had to because no one else could be strong for me. No one else could find a new house to live in or start my new life as single...for me.

I never expected he would hate me for being strong, but I think he does and as I read his letter from all those years ago today ...My tears just will not stop. Back then I loved him just as much as my recent ex, I just forgot about it to survive the pain...I pushed it into the darkness where it could not touch me any more and I could not see it. A new woman was born that day, a new me only the past I pushed aside would be the very reason why I fell again. Because about 1 year later I met another man which I fell head over heels with after just about 3-4 months together. Unexpectedly his big smile warmed every cell in my body and I felt so calm around him and if I did not have the best day he was there. At least until he left.

Because I pushed my last pain and love into the shadows I was able to open my heart again to another. Just like that....yes it was foolish and yes I do regret it now. Again I was hoping I had met the guy that I would grow old with but only this time it was as if we were playing the fast-forward button towards the end. Maybe it was my fault and maybe it was his...whatever it was it went fast and because I liked that everything moved smoothly and without a hitch I did not question it. And, I guess I forgot to prepare myself for the ending. With Gideon I was if nothing else at least a little prepared that it could end and probably would, with him I was just hoping I was wrong. The 2nd time around in love was different though, because I had forgotten how much true heartache fucking hurts. We went places together me and my lovers, we saw things, amazing things and in the end all of it faded and it makes me think that despite all that beauty and perfection that love brings.....what the heck was I doing?

This is not me! Or who I want to be to say the least because how can I manage in life by letting love ster my course? I can not and will not forget this time, I just dare hope I have learned from it. Maybe for me it is better to hold back if possible and see the world on my own. Not to become bitter, by letting the heart rest and process the sadness of loosing its electric current and then reviving it with new energy. Self-love? Someone once told me that this is the key to such survival and renewal, for me seeing my past like this, well it is difficult. I may have confidence in my walk or talk however, how can I know how to love myself? Who has shown me what love was? Does it even exist and at which velocity ?

I was not THE woman in ex nr 1s life nor ex nr 2. What I did realize from these men is that no matter what happens with love, life will go on, time will too, even when you do not wish it to. Whichever way I choose to cope and whoever was around me at the time to pick up the messy trail of tears....looking back now I have learned one very important lesson. Keep the memories even if they hurt, even if they make you feel stupid at times, because maybe one day I will meet someone who does see me as THE woman of his life and that does not pose or show off his fake emotions to ´win´ the challenge and just maybe I will be ready to feel something back if I remember how nice love feels when I let down my armour and let myself feel it back for someone at my own speed.

If I am honest I have dated a few men in my life and I know it is rare for me to feel anything other then just a happy notion in the corners of the chest. People can be nice, interesting even and intelligent, yet love is a strange definition to something we cannot touch nor see. And it tends to pop up when one least expects it, with the people we least expect it to and in situations that might not always be in our favour. When someone leaves you for another love I think at least there is that, the truth and the pureness of honesty is something I can forgive....and the beginning is always so innocent, clear and nice. We feel invincible together and as if the other is perfect, we are so scared to make honesty dirty with our truth that lies often come with our fear of not being loved back and so they are a supplement to maintain the perfectness of the relation. We are scared that the love will die as it always tends to, or that we will hurt the other by telling the truth. When the very lies one is telling is the knife that will terminate the perfectness of it all.

To me real feelings are hardcore, the type of energy that will drive you to do crazy shit just like moving far away or ordering a one way ticket to a country one does not know much about. If I could give any advice at all based on all this: Do not move to a country without knowing some basics of that language and DO NOT move there without at job.

It feels like yesterday that I landed at Schiphol with my one-way-ticket to Amsterdam. Had I known what I know today I probably would have never left the UK or spent a year after my study in Norway and then ended up in the Netherlands, in Utrecht. In a way I am glad I did not know, because I would not have found myself living in this wonderful country and the life I have.

I now know what people mean when they say love is a drug. Though it cannot be measured in your blood it will change you so completely the danger is you might not recognise yourself after it has hit you. And even-though it makes your logical brain malfunction it makes the blood pump and gives a high like nothing else I have ever felt. When the supply is cut off we often get withdrawal symptoms and then we learn to survive without it for a while. A lesser need for crazy emotion is present now and I dare hope say my withdrawal symptoms are under control.

The hurt will die with time, the walls of armour I now wear will come trembling down when the time is right. But until then I am more than happy to wear it for the months and maybe years to come. Though I doubt this post will help anyone in any way, it was just something I needed to get off my chest.

                                        Xxx Viking