It is all very cliche, it is and because of that it is all very true. A New Year means to a lot new beginnings. Honestly, I think our lives just move on, it is just another day. Another day of being you, so the New Year should not be a reason to have good intensions, every day should be. Every day you get the chance to live your life you should go out there and do so. The routine of life gets in the way sometimes they say, but on the other hand that is ok. We get up, shower, get dressed – ask a few times to get it moving because we are going to be late for school – go to work, get home, homework, dinner, … You know the drill. Weekends, our weekends are – since we moved here – quality time for the 4 of us. Our boy loves his egg breakfast – our girl loves nothing more then a piece of chocolate on her toast, but still routine. And I LOVE it, I NEED it, I need things to proceed as routine, yet I love to change routines to keep going. But this year got me lost in my routines, got me lost in where I am and who I actually am.
I had to fly back home 3 times this year, once for 9 weeks, once for 1 week, once for 6 weeks. And every time I was there, despite the pain, heartache thrown at me there, I could just pick up where we left off – now – 2,5 years ago. Belgium stays home, it is where I lived my whole life, where I started the routines, where we adapted our routines and where we took our start on life.
Every time I was there I enjoyed how home it feels, I did not need navigation to get me from A-B and my people are there. And with my people I mean, the ones who know me by looking at me, by showing up when they sense I might need it, by standing by me when I lost a piece of my roots.
And yes, I do have a few “my people” here too, although it is different and that is ok. I am lucky to have “my people” all 2 sides of the ocean. And I’d like to believe there are some between those very bright stars up there.
There are only a handful of people in life that have your back when your world as you knew it shreds to pieces. And in a huge way, my life as a child, teenager comes with a lot of questions, uncertainties, for always to remain like this. I thought that over the years I had come to peace with never fully knowing the why’s and the because’s. I guess I have not. I have to keep breathing, it hurts so badly, so deep, so so much pain in my body. It is literally growing inside me.
I am not seeing the things trough my pink glasses, I am not making what was good better and what was sad, happy. I am not, I will not ever, I will stay true to myself. I think it would be easier to see it trough my pink glasses, it would be easier if I did not care so much. I DO care and for the right reasons.
I’d wish she had a better life, a warmer life, surrounded by her good memories, not in hiding from the sad ones. I’d wish she and I had a better life, that I could say what I now know, that I could ask one more why and get the answer and that I could be at peace with it. I’d like to go to the Zoo with her, I’d like to text her to let her know how much Ibe & fien are evolving, …
I’d like to think, no I know, that the last 6 years of her life where those warmer and better ones. A steady job, seeing my brother and me proceed with our lives and become a grandmother to my children. She adored them, gave them her all. And she said once that trough them she’d wanted “to make up” for what she could not give me. I told her I knew, I told her it is ok, I told her she did not have to do that, I knew, it was ok. And it also were my last words to her “het is ok mama, het is echt ok, laat maar los” (it is ok mom, it really is ok, let it go)
But all that, all this, it has thrown me out of my routines, big time. It made me forget even more then before, it has taking away my patience for some things, more then I dare to admit. It has made me anxious, more then I was before, it has made me worry more about my people, even more afraid of losing them. And aging, it has me petrified about aging. Not the cute grey hairs I see popping up but the physical part of aging. It scares the *** out of me. Should I get a gen research done? For what? Knowing what and yet not being able to do anything about what might come up?
And yet, I feel that some things just mean less and less to me. I am me, I am the emotional bitch, the one that loves to dance in the living room for no particicular reason, the one that needs to organize her cabinets during our lazy Sundays – which annoys the *** out of Bjorn- the one that will take advantage of every moment to be around my loved ones. The one that cries sometimes for no reason at all and when she sees her children all of the sudden growing up, changing, developing their personalities, … I care for the well being of my people, home and here – our home away from home – but also, why should I keep investing in relationships that – for me – do not have a future anymore? The ones where I’ve put a lot of energy and a big piece of my heart in and not gaining anything back from it, not anymore. How does one handle that? How does one move on from that?
I have a few things that I say when it comes to life choices, when a new route has to be taken or when I am forced to go into another direction.
” you only can write your life story once”
and
” if only we got instructions to live our lives”
and
“treat the people around you how you want to be treated”
All of the above are ideals right? Well, yes, that is also me, I love ideals, I believe I work hard to – with my very sweet, patient, husband – to reach my ideals.
If one day my life is over I’d like to be the one they laugh about, saying how stubborn I was to hang on to my ideals. And the memories we share, keep them as our memories, don’t look trough them with my beloved pink glasses but as they were. They are just fine as they are, those that will follow, will be just as awesome, I promise.
I want to thank my people, here and there, there and here, for standing by me when I get anxious, when I am petrified, when I am dancing in your living room, when I am crying on your couch – or over the phone- when we are singing along – totally off key – on our road trips. I am there for you, for all the same things, for when you can’t breath anymore, for when you don’t see the end of that tunnel, for when you want to dance, for when you are forced to take another route, for when you need me.
I am not there yet, I am not, but I am getting there, because of you “my people”
Love, Elisa