This morning I went on the scales and much to my relief, I weigh 97.1 kilos. So, now I have lost 28.3 kilos, but why I have after yesterday, I really don’t know. I ate my fill, and at one point I even wanted to eat a slice of bread with peanut butter, that’s how much I was craving that, but I stopped myself and just had a glass of milk instead. I did eat two pears and three pieces of cheese, even though I had said that I would stop eating the cheese for now. Well, now all the cheese is gone, because I ate it all, so there is no temptation left there. I also had Melba toast twice and drink yogurt and I felt like I had a lot to eat, but it had a lot to do with me feeling so tired and trying to get some energy out of the food I ate.
I slept on the sofa in the morning and in the afternoon and they weren’t little naps, they were genuine sleeps. It was as if I had a lot of sleeping to catch up on. Then I went to bed at 9 pm and I slept until 7 am this morning, so that is about 10 hours of sleep, and now I am starting to feel like that has been enough and I am caught up. Every time I woke up, I wanted something to eat and not a little bit, but a lot, well, what is a lot for me anyway.
Now I am sitting here with my first cup of coffee, yawning and still waking up, although that coffee ought to start working soon now. I think I must have had such a busy and exciting week that my body had to catch up with my brain, and it finally did yesterday (or maybe my brain was tired too). I did wake up each time to walk the dog, so I did get some fresh air and some exercise. My oh my, then last night I dreamt about my ex in laws and that was an interesting dream filled with rejection and misunderstandings, pretty much how it was in real life. Very frustrating!
Imagine being seventeen years old and moving from the Netherlands to the States and marrying into a large right wing family where all the men order all the women about and all the women listen to the name Honey. Honey, get me a beer, will ya. The men all watch football on TV and the women are in the kitchen cooking the Thanksgiving dinner. That was so alien to my experience. I thought these people had never heard of women’s emancipation. None of the men had ever vacuumed or washed the windows or done anything domestic in their life. And the women acted very helpless when it came to anything that took place in the men’s domain. Such preconceived ideas, about the races too. About black people and illegal immigrants. Oh, horror!
I have to say though, that my ideas and concepts did rub off on my ex and he became more liberal about some things as a result of that and he still is. There was one uncle in the family who was very much to the left and he was a union organizer who lived in Boston. He was my favorite person in the family and how he turned out the way he did, I have no idea. It was very refreshing to talk to him when he was in town. He managed to get himself jailed every once in a while at protests and when the kids were younger, he got them Solidarnosc T-shirts, which they wore with pride.
When my daughter went to high school, her first ever boyfriend was a tall black basketball player and her grandfather especially had a hard time with that, but Nick really stood up to him and talked like a lawyer to get her point of view across. That relationship lasted until the boy went away to university. I think they are still in touch with each other now. Of course, we made damn sure that we made no issue of it, even though I knew that deep in his heart my ex worried about it. But he censored himself and let it be and accepted the relationship. The ones that didn’t accept it, were the black girls at the high school, they really gave Nick a hard time about it, which we didn’t find out about until later. She didn’t tell us about it at the time.
We now live in a mixed neighborhood. There are real white middle class families, but also Moroccan and Turkish people and black people and immigrants and mixed working class families. I hope it stays that way, as it is a more normal reflection of our society. It has to do with there being different kinds of housing in a relatively small amount of space. I think a mixed neighborhood is good, as long as there are no bad elements in it like there were when the bad neighborhood was still across from us. That was a white trash neighborhood and that added absolutely no value to the neighborhood as a whole. They trashed their own houses and the space around them and had no idea what it was like to be responsible citizens. And no matter how you turn it, it does come down to that in the end. You have to take the responsibility for your own space and behavior and for the space around you…
…I have fed the cats and they really like the brand of cat food that we have now. They eat most of it right away, leaving little leftovers for the dog. That’s okay, he doesn’t really need it. He just thinks he does. The dog is wandering around, but he doesn’t act as though he needs to go out yet. Eduard walked him late last night, so I suppose he is okay for now…
When I first came to the States, my mother and my little sister came with me. My sister was ten years old at the time. We came six weeks ahead of the wedding and I think my mother had decided on this time to check out the family, and my ex, to see what kind of people they were. I think even during this time she was having her doubts, but she saw my determination and let it all go ahead. We really didn’t have a clue as to how it would really be once I was there, married and on my own. The thing is, that I always had this very grown up air about me, as if I always knew exactly what I was doing, when in reality I was very naive and I really didn’t have a clue. I think I functioned fine in my own familiar surroundings, with my own family and friends around me, but I sure functioned badly on my own in the States. My ex worked all day long and had to go to university at night. We lived in the suburbs and I had no driver’s license or car, nor did I have the comfort of family or friends. It was all a bad scene and soon enough I had my first genuine depression, although I didn’t recognise it as such at the time. It is strange, I was so very unhappy, but I stayed. I didn’t go home, even though I should have. I did talk about it and asked my ex if he would come with me, but I knew he would not and I could not go back on my own, for fear of the embarrassment.
That was the first of very many instances when I stayed in the marriage, when I should have gotten out. Many more followed. When I finally got out for good, there was no going back, it was impossible. But I don’t get any points for getting out gracefully, on the contrary. I left my kids along with the marriage, even though I convinced myself that they were old enough to leave with their father. I knew that it wasn’t okay, but I could find no way to stay, I was dying. Mentally I was dying. Later on, when I came to my senses a bit, I realized that I couldn’t live without the children, but I knew no way for me to fix that, and I punished myself for that unmercifully, more than God could have punished me for that.
Somehow I had to forgive myself for that, but it was a long hard road to get there. I owe my daughter a lot in that process. Now I am here in this life that is so very different, so very much more healthy than my life had been before, so very much not dysfunctional. I am very grateful for that. And I have love, let’s not forget that, it’s an important ingredient. Is it true that, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger? I don’t know. I gladly would have gone without some of these lessons of life. To go back to the
first decision and change that.
I am not writing this down out of a depressed sadness. On the contrary. I am writing this as a journalist commenting on a life and I now have the dimension of objectivity on my side. It really feels as if I am talking about a whole other life in a whole other time. The link is the children, and one of them is dead. Remains my daughter who has made her own journey and who is her own journalist commenting on her own life with the same objectivity. That’s how far she has come. Together we can reminisce and recall how things were from each point of view. And we have so many years ahead of us still, years in which to get it right, in which to make good decisions.
I like my new in laws a lot, although they all have their own eccentricities. I really miss my one sister in law who used to live in France and who died four years ago. She was a good woman with a kind heart and was very intelligent. I felt close to her and very safe. You felt that you could trust her with anything. It’s a shame that my other sisters in law are spread around the world and that we so very seldom see them, because they are good women also and I enjoy spending time with them. The women in Eduard’s family are definitely emancipated and stand their ground. I really appreciate that, especially since the men in the family are strong characters who require and demand a lot of space. The women know how to deal with that. No nonsense, boys!
I have to go walk the dog now, it is getting late and before you know it, it is too late…
Anyway, yesterday, and the day before that, were real low energy days, both physically and mentally. It worried me and I was hoping it wasn’t a sign of bad things to come. When Lucien came and got my Bright Light Energy Lamp, I was worried about needing it myself. I just felt like things weren’t going well with me. I kept trying to feel up, while I really felt down. Now, I think after all that sleep I have had, I really do feel better and it just may have done the trick. Going to bed on time last night was also a good idea, after I even considered staying up for Eduard to come home. I thought I wouldn’t fall asleep after I had slept pretty much all day. Wrong, I did! You know things aren’t going well when you are trying to artificially make yourself feel better than you are. When you don’t want to get dressed and put your make up on and your jewelry and when you don’t want to clean house and you only want to lie down on the sofa or on the bed. And you keep saying to yourself: I’m okay, I’m okay, when you are not.
Now I really am. There is some joy back in my spirit and that is good. I think I may want to go for a bike ride today and stop by the chapel to burn a candle. That might be something to do this afternoon. Now I have to stop writing, because my husband is calling me. He has today off, tonight also. Yippee! Ciao…
Another Bright Day! 