An Xennial’s quest to the rest of her life
My 42nd year on this planet is coming up, time for some Q&A:
Why did this have to happen to me? Life is like a set of waves, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. Just like anything in the Universe, human life has its cycles.
My dreams have come true and I have a sense of magic. What if I dream up something else, can I have that too? The answer is: Just do it.
Who am I and what do I want? To figure that out, go on a quest to the rest of your life.
I have always loved stories. I remember my dad reading me bed time stories when I was a little girl. Watched so many Hollywood movies in high school. And in University I really learned to tell stories myself through the many, many papers I had to write. I have always journaled and since a few years I have my own blog.
But lately I have started to dig into the stories of my favorite storytellers. And you know what they all have in common? Great storytellers ask great questions:
| Storyteller | Their question | My answer |
| Oprah Winfrey | Who am I and what do I want? | I’m a storyteller and I want to tell stories |
| Mark Manson | What are you giving a f*ck about and why? | I want to spread an idea and inspire people |
| Les Brown | Why don’t most people want to work on their dreams? | I don’t know, why not? |
| Simon Sinek | What do you believe? | I believe I’m supposed to go off the beaten path |
| Tony Robbins | Why not have it now? | Exactly |
So the question arises, what is my big question? I think right now my big question is: am I doing the right thing? But this leads to more questions. Like: what is the right thing? Is it the right thing to me, or the right thing to the people I am trying to please? Why am I a pleaser? Why do I have such a hard time figuring out what I want?
When you have a Master’s degree, made a career and travelled the world by the time you are forty, you might ask yourself: is that all there is? I suppose that’s my big question. Is that all there is? How about a place to call home, or a family? Or a new career path? Or financial independence? Or love? So many things to pick from. Should it even be one or two, or can I have it all?
Maybe doing nothing for now is the best option. Because figuring out what to do every day, is also doing something. Trying to push things in a certain direction. And I have to learn to stop trying so hard and start going with the flow. Wu Wei right?
I met with William the Psychic on a Thursday afternoon in the Pearl, just a few blocks away from my house. I had just lived in the US for over a year. I was excited and curious as I took the elevator up to his office, he was already waiting for me at the end of the hallway. We shook hands and I sat down in a comfortable leather chair across from the couch where he sat. He looked really hipster for a psychic, well-groomed beard, designer glasses, Apple watch, shorts, and tattooed arms.
He closed his eyes and started ‘reading’ my energy. The seven layers of my aura as he called it. When he came to the second layer, that was about emotions, feelings, sensuality and sexuality, it was clear that what I wanted was love. But there was an inherent fear of being swallowed up by the other person and that fear was in the way, he said. He told me my next big dream was the relationship. But no one had shown up for me yet. He saw a picture of me in the jungle, dressed like Indiana Jones, ready to hack through the fear, to have what I knew I wanted. But there were not many people like me, who wanted to experience the fullness of life, he read. I had been looking in all the wrong places. I had been looking on the ground, but my people were the monkeys up in the trees, the ones who could have the whole forest, he said metaphorically. I would soon notice a profound shift in that loop. I would find those people, he promised. The monkeys, my people.
Also read [Finding Leonardo]
It was September 2nd 2013, Monster Mike sat across the table from me at breakfast and he goes: “You do realize you are just as crazy as the rest of us right?” I decided not to say anything, just gave him a big smile and took a bite off my sandwich. That day was my 31st birthday.
Weeks earlier I was walking down the street with quite the pace. And as I saw my reflection in a window, I clearly heard a voice saying: ‘Slow down. This is your life. Tell him.’
Diagnosis: Bipolar I Disorder. And I didn’t even know what a Bipolar Disorder was. That was the end of my life as I knew it.
Twelve years have passed. Since then, my dreams came true when I landed a job on the US West Coast, but I found myself back on home soil two years later. Homeless, unemployed, with just two suitcases and all my belongings on a ship somewhere on the Atlantic.
I had a sense of magic, what if I dreamed up something else, could I have that too? The dream was the relationship, but no one had shown up for me yet.
After my return to Holland, I went back to school, fell off the grid, to eventually work on my recovery. Off to the rest of my life it is now. Whatever that might be, because life is given to you, my late great coach Caroline once said.
All my life I have been living other people’s lives: boyfriends’, parents’, society’s. It’s time to start living my life. I have been running around like a crazy person trying to make things happen, it is time to slow down. And one day, hopefully, I will be able to tell him. Even though I don’t know who ‘he’ is and what I am supposed to tell him, yet…
But I do believe there was a reason I was ripped away from my old life, quit my career and have been in recovery for over a decade.
[To be continued]
Almost a decade ago, while devastated by troubled parents and broken relationships, I was walking down the street completely psychotic, when I heard a voice whispering: ‘Slow down. This is your life. Tell him’.
I have spent the past decade trying to figure out what those words meant. And I think I’m almost there:
I was going too fast in life and a Bipolar Disorder was the only means to slow me down. But I had to hit Ctrl+Alt+Del first.
I was living everyone’s life, my parents’, my boyfriends’, except for my own. But I had to move continents to come to that realization.
I hope one day I find the courage to tell my Leonardo that I love him, but for now he’s just a mosaic man.
Ctrl+Alt+Del
September 2, 2013. Monster Mike sat across the table from me at breakfast. He was a tall eighteen-year-old kid, with a choppy beard and long blond curly hair. We were trying to figure out what personality one of our schizoid fellow patients had taken on today, as she shuffled down the common area in her pajama’s, and he goes: “You do realize you are just as crazy as the rest of us right?” Well, Mike, actually I don’t agree, I think to myself. I am not ‘crazy’. But since I was admitted to this psych ward as a mental patient, who was I to judge? So, I decided not to say anything, just gave him a big smile and took a bite off my sandwich. Today was my 31st birthday. And I was just diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder.
Just do it
“So, tell me, how’s your job? Do you like it?” My mentor asked one day while I was in his office helping him on his iPad. “Sure”, I said, “but I’m looking into new opportunities”. “So, what is it that you want most out of your career”, he continued. “Or in life, or with this company?” I took a moment to think about it. “What I really want is to live and work in the US”, I said. “Just do it”, he replied.
And so it went.
When I finally made it to my business class seat, my first business class trip ever, I realized I had travelled the world, lived abroad, but this was different somehow. I was all alone, no boyfriend, no colleagues and there was no plan or project. This was a one-way ticket to the rest of my life, I thought.
As time passed, I got used to my new habitat. I made friends, went hiking and camping in the mountains surrounding the city and enjoyed Portland life, with its Thirst Thursdays in the Pearl and rooftop BBQs. And I became a Snowboard coach for a local high school, which meant going up to Mount Hood twice a week. Life in Portland was good.
I learned how to appreciate life at campus too. I saw Phil Knight – the founding father of Nike – while having lunch at the Mia Hamm building. Visited a celebration for Serena (Williams, the tennis player), after winning her 23rd Grand Slam: ‘Greatest Ever, Greatest Ever’, we chant to her in the Bo Jackson sports center. I also managed to get a ticket to a special lunch with Nelson Farris and Jeff Johnson, the companies’ storyteller and the first employee. They were Nike celebrities. People you read about in Shoe Dog. But here at the heart of Nike you could listen to their stories firsthand. And finally, one day after lunch I passed Mark Parker, our CEO, he worked in the building next to mine. I gave him a polite nod, then he turned and said ‘Hi’… Oh My God. The CEO of Nike said hi to me!
I didn’t know at the time those would be my final months in the US. But my dreams had come true and I had a sense of magic, what if I dreamed up something else, could I have that too?
Finding Leonardo
My Leonardo is not my baby daddy, not my provider and neither my roommate nor my brother. My Leonardo is my lover, in bed and out. He’s the one who asks me to come over three times after a night out, he shows interest when I’m prepping for my birthday party during his night shift. And he’s the first one to congratulate me at midnight on my birthday. I know who my Leonardo is.
You are a sweetheart, my friend with benefits. You are a disaster, but oh so entertaining, interesting and exciting. You tell me your heroic tales and I listen all night with awe. You are so smart and gifted, but ten years too young. You are an international, who has lived in different countries. I know you adore me. I know who my Leonardo is, I just haven’t met you yet.
My brother and I in Oregon – USA, 2018
‘You can plan a pretty picknick, but you can’t predict the weather’
– OutKast
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Remember this children’s song from back in the day? Just another connotation to going with the flow, or Wu Wei, to me. Rowing your boat down the stream, gently. Going with it’s natural course.
Lately I keep seeing the number 11:11 when I look at the clock. So I asked around if there are others who have the same thing. And apparently I am not the only one, who sometimes notices these numbers. Some think it’s a message from your guardian angel, or an angel number. Or is it just plain coincidence? If you’re interested, check this out:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/11:11_(numerology)
https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/1111-angel-number-meaning/
By the way: did you notice this blog once started on November 11th?
To give an example of synchronicity:
On my website, thesurfoflife.com, I explain what Surfing through Life is all about. It’s an idea I have had for years and it preaches that life is like a set of waves, sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. When you pay attention to life, you can learn how to surf these waves. At least, that’s what I believe. To illustrate my thesis the website also features some images of wave related themes, amongst them is the Great Wave of Kanagawa, some Japanese painting.
So, one day I have a job application with a company I really want to work for. I had already had a few video calls and now I was invited to the office for an actual face to face convo with the hiring manager. As I walked in he first offered me a cup of tea in the kitchen and then gave me a tour around the office. It was an old school building, with high ceilings and big windows. The office was empty since we were in the middle of the Corona lockdown. As he showed me around he pointed at the wall, which displayed all sorts of posters. ‘Everyone who works here got to pick a poster’, the manager explained. ‘And this is the one I picked’, so he points at this picture of a wave. The exact same picture that’s on the landing page of my website! Coincidence? I don’t know. But this had to be a good sign, right? Of all the posters in the world there was my Japanese waves picture, and of all the posters on the wall, that was the one this guy picked. The same guy I was hoping was going to offer me a job. That must have been what Carl Jung meant by Synchronicity. Two days later I received a phone call and I was offered the job.
(It is no longer on the website, but this is what the image looks like)
The Surf of Life 