Rollercoaster Year

I feel like I'm on an intercity heading towards... well, a still unknown destiny, but on the move I am for sure. 
I don't even have the slightest clue to how far on track I am, or if I'm going in the right direction, if there even exists a wrong one.
But I do know that I like my traveling companions.

A year ago I was still walking, crawling even maybe, I was moving, but very slowly. Also then I had no clue to where I was going. The difference was, it was like I was walking in extremely thick fog, I couldn't see five feet in front of me. I was simply placing one foot in front of the other, waiting in anticipation for something to happen, before I felt courageous enough to move my other foot. 
I had no job, no boyfriend, but I did have home and a cat. And I had a whole year in front of me, with nothing to do, nothing planned, nothing to look forward to, and I was scared out my wits.

The first thing that happened in 2014 was the death of my beloved grandfather. He was my last grandparent and the one I had felt the most close to. While going on a little stroll, to get away from his deathbed, I got a call from appco, a sales company, asking if I could come in for an interview. 
On the sixth of January I went to the job interview at appco. It was nothing like I'd ever experienced. Dennis was giving a presentation on how the company started out, worked and what the prospects were in the future. It dawned on me that I would probably be expected to be doing door to door sales. Something I despised. But Dennis was very charismatic and he taught me a lot. I decided to give it a go, for the simple reason that I had no choice: otherwise my state allowance would be canceled. My choice were these: appco or selling tickets to tourists from inside a cubicle. The prospect of being locked up and doing the same thing over and over again was worse to that what was offered by appco: a chance to learn and develop. 
But I didn't get called back....

My grandfather almost got buried on the tenth of January, luckily my father interrupted, on my request; I didn't want the years to come to be thinking of this funeral when it's actually my birthday. 

So, on the ninth we put my grandfather into the ground, where he rests together with the love his life, whom he had missed so much.

On the tenth I had the first birthday organised by me, that I actually enjoyed: I figured that, seeing as it is 'my day', I'm going to do things that I like. So we went to the sauna, diner at an Italian place and then a movie. A new formula was born. 
(feel like stories getting mixed up? Welcome to my 2014! It gets way way worse!)

On the fourth of February I got another call; appco again, I could come in for the second interview. 
Next day I was sitting in Dennis' office, while he was talking in a top-speed-fashion about the company, the wages and all I could think was: I actually have to act like I want this. But somehow he worked his magic and I didn't really need to pretend. 

The next week I started my new job, first off we got some training and I got introduced to my "leader". She didn't show me anything useful, not in the first week, nor the second or third. However, I did get really good in motivating her. I enjoyed the training I got, but got frustrated over the fact that my development appeared to be a slow one. Truth be told: I never believed I could be any good at this job,

but it taught me to be more assertive, standing strong and how persistent I could actually be.

During that time, a lot of colleagues used Tindr as a way of amusement. I created a profile as well, but didn't really like the concept. People liking and disliking one another, and when you got matched, usually nothing happened. On the 21st of March I tried a little experience: I send 6 people the same text; I wanted to see what the result was. 
The 28th of March I finally hit my leadership criteria at appco (8 sales in 1 week). I had been working as hard as I possibly could; always coming in early to get some extra training and always challenging myself. But this week everything finally payed of. Normally, people hit those criteria withing 3 weeks, but like I said: I developed a bit slowly. 
That weekend I celebrated by going to the sauna and ending with the result of the Tindr-challenge. I met with Nicky for the first time, ending the date walking through the vondelpark.

From thereon the story becomes very chaotic. I was still working and planning on a conference for drama therapists, I worked about 60 to 70 hours a week for appco. I went cycling as a tourist guide for 2 weeks in spring and 2 in summer and all the while my relationship with Nicky developed very fast. 

During the summer months the Irish came to appco and needed an apartment. I offered them mine, so I could trial live together with Nicky. In the end there was nothing "trial" about it. 

The team I started off with at appco, that I'd enjoyed so much, had almost completely fallen apart. Dennis, who was still a great motivation, quit. And I didn't seem to have developed anything new after my leadership. As if this wasn't bad enough, they started to "fear of loss"- us. We had to perform to a certain level, otherwise we'd be kicked out. I felt undignified. I had a bloody degree in drama therapy and some other stuff as well, also: I had so much to offer and I'd been working so hard for so long, and now you want to kick me out if I don't "perform"? I'm no performing monkey in heels! I am a person!

During those cycling weeks in summer, I got a call from another sales company. I went for an open conversation, it was still door to door sales, but the hours were better, the payment was better, the development system much more fair and the product was easier to sell. Not to mention: a great deal of the old team would start there as well!

So I changed jobs. It had caused me many a sleepless night, and lots of tummy aches, but when I look back this moment, it seemed to have gone faster then having breakfast. 

In between the jobs I went to Italy with Nicky. We explored Rome and the surroundings, discovering there's more beautiful nature close by then you could possibly imagine!

Starting work again, having to build up everything from scratch, but together. Every stone we crafted and placed, becoming the funding of our team and development. I was enjoying helping out with everything that was needed, but the part of selling door to door had begun to wear on me. It was getting more and more difficult to motivate myself. It was almost as if I had used up all my reserves during the appco-time. 

On a late summer morning in September Nicky got a call from his mother, in which she requested to speak to me. I was surprised, but not as surprised as I would be in the following minutes. She was leaving for Lesotho in two weeks and asked me to accompany her. Apart off course from the daunting feeling of going on a holiday for a month with your boyfriends mum, whom you've seen trice, was the feeling of guilt and obligation. I had promised to stay with the company for at least half a year and I don't like disappointing people. However, after a short talk it was decided: I to go to Lesotho, it was a once in lifetime opportunity and I would be mad to let it pass. 
I am happy to say the company supported me fully on this and even came with a better job offer when I returned.

Lesotho was a place, out of this world. Or, to be more correct: it is completely "into this world" and we've grown out of it. With our roads, and cellphones, skyscrapers, television sets and so on. It took me a bit more then a week to get used to being there, but once I was, I really didn't want to leave. And it was also around that time that realised: I really do like traveling!

I made new friends there and was forced to review every thought and opinion I had on live, development, friendships, religion, and nature. 

When I think back, I can still see the trees and the children, the mountains and the sand. I can still smell the difference in night and day... especially when going to the longdrop. But also, when I think back, I feel uncertain it ever happened.

After having returned to The Netherlands a few things had changed:

Like I said, my job was different, I didn't had to go door to door anymore. I was going to set up something, but needed some call centre experience first. Something I appeared to be quite good at, to my biggest astonishment. Meanwhile I got a lot of other duties which I enjoyed. 

In my mind the relationship with Nicky was far past the "possibly"-point and became a "definite"-thing.

Right now not two weeks are alike. The relationship is going steady, which is good. 'Cause at work things still change rapidly. New duties add up, new challenges, new responsibilities and I'm enjoying every single one of them.

So that's my train ride through 2014. Somewhere in march/April the intercity left and it took me a while to get up to speed. 
But now I feel like the brakes have broken and I've given over to faith. 

I'm as curious as ever, what I will be writing here next year!

Swimming upstream

This morning as I was reading the Happinez about some Guru’s who can smell, see, feel, listen to you and immediately realize that and what is wrong. And as often happens, I found myself daydreaming away, sometimes we all need (or needed) that person who would just look at you and know that you’re not at all feeling as happy as you’re portraying. And all of the sudden you feel the desperate need to contact these guru’s, until you realize that they probably charge a crazy amount of many for their services. To me, this is a strange contrast, people who so dearly want to help others and live in touch with “what really matters”, but they’re most of the time very materialistic in the financial department. I don’t really understand that.

Getting off topic, anyway…

Yesterday I went out with someone who did give me the feeling he really saw me, not just the physical part. And we started talking about our youth. He told me he was bullied for 1 year at school, but then his brother came to the same school. His brother was the cool guy and if you hurt him or his family his revenge would be very hurtful. At first I thought; yeah, but still… it was only one year, and then it changed. But this was very damaging, because my friend got the lesson, that he wasn’t enough, he’d needed his brother (or someone else) so be worth something.

I didn’t have a brother of sister, I had a lovely old cat. When he died I got a new very young cat, and for one day he did function as my friend’s brother. I took the kitten to school and everyone was nice to me, because they wanted to play with him. So off course I got really upset when my mum told me I couldn’t take him to school every day.

No school wasn’t fun. It felt like swimming upstream, without having had one swimming lesson in your life. And sometimes you’re tired and just let yourself get pulled under just to find you’ve drifted downstream again, when you finally are able to breathe again. But at least it got easier,  every time you had to go the distance. Meanwhile just getting stronger and maybe a little but further then last time.

At long last everything changed when I arrived at university. At first I was confused, because for once the stream was going in the same direction as I was. Sometimes I just drifted along, and sometimes old habits kicked in and I just tried swimming upstream, only to find out that I was going in the wrong direction. But the thing was, it took me a while to find out how to actually swim along the stream. And when I did, I finally thought I got the hang of it, we arrived at a waterfall: I graduated with o.k. grades and actually found some friends along the way!

But I wasn’t ready to let go completely. So just before we went over the edge, to find a new stream at the bottom, I jumped out of the stream just to enjoy the view for a while. This has proven a wise decision, because in this time everything that I’ve learned in the previous 4 years had time to sink in. I started making decisions for me, decisions that were to make me happy.

At this moment I feel completely competent to jump the waterfall and find a new stream, but somehow the waterfall dried up. Or am I hallucinating? I’ve been wondering around this forest on the edge, but I can’t find the waterfall anymore. I tried just simply jumping down from the place where I thought was the old waterfall, but nothing happened, I just ended up where I was.

So, right now I’m just jumping in everyplace where there’s room to jump.  Hopefully I find my waterfall real soon…

On the other hand, after having created these amazing muscles for swimming upstream, righ now I’m creating killer muscles for jumping!

There’s always a lessons to be learned…. J

The obligation of being (anti-)social

Today I was cycling through Amsterdam (doing a lot of that, these days) as I passed someone who walking on the sidewalk and continuously looking over his shoulder. Just as I past him he saw what he was looking for: the bus was coming. He started running. As I drove on, accompanied by the sound of his running feet (it wasn't a very light run, though the boy wasn't heavy), I was still going faster then him. As the bus reached the busstop, way ahead of us, I heard the running steps kick it up a notch. The boy was getting desperate, he didn't just have to catch a bus, he had to catch thát bus! For a moment I contemplated looking back at him and shouting 'hop on! I'll bring you!' My bike is strong, my tires have plenty of air, I'm strong enough and it's just the thing for me to do.

... but I didn't.

Later in the day, I was again cycling (like I said, doing a lot of that), I saw a woman, obviously a tourist, standing with a piece of paper. I assumed the piece of paper held and adress she had to get too, the woman was looking close to panicking. Her husband was looking around the streets, as if there would be a sign saying: "mr. and mss. Johnson, this way please!" As I approached the couple, the woman asked another man for help, he shook his head, he was also a tourist and had no idea how to get them to their spot. I thought about stopping, asking them where they had to be and help them get there. I was in no rush, I knew the area well, and it was just the thing for me to do.

... but again, I didn't.

It wasn't that I didn't want to, it wasn't that I couldn't, I just didn't.
Does this make me a bad person? Or antisocial? Or did this make me like most people, who don't bother to help, when they're not being asked, or when they're not obliged by some unwritten social rule?
Do we always have to help the people, when we're able to? Should we?
Should we mind our own business, and so should others?

Maybe it's selfish to always want to be the one to help others...
Maybe I should give others the opportunity of helping their fellow citizens...
Maybe I was very social, to an other helper today...