Category Archives: Friends

Nature’s Wonders

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If you wonder where I’ve been… Well besides being busy I had to come to terms with a few issues so I needed time to reflect. Things have been slightly rough again lately or perhaps they still were: I might have been a bit in denial for some time and were forced to face it over the last few weeks. I had some kinda wake-up call and I’m not so sure yet if I should be happy about the situation or not. Actually there are a few, not just one…

Some things can make me feel extremely helpless and leave me frustrated or upset. I see someone close and dear struggling and I see someone else being completely absorbed by a relationship resulting in losing identity. In the first situation it happens long-distance so I can’t do anything about it except being there when I’m needed and I seem to fail doing so because of my own needs, making it hard to juggle. This one is passionate and slightly complicated…

In the second situation I just found out that the person might not be aware or is just blissfully in denial. I can see change in character because of the influence of a partner. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in a similar situation so I guess that’s exactly why my radar picked it up. Again I can’t say or do anything about it but sit this one out and when it does I better have the Kleenex and a spare room ready. I just need to figure out a way to deal with it in the meantime…

Now picture my chauldron filled to the rim with the above ingredients including an equal measure of my own concerns which aren’t exactly rosy at the moment either. Let it stew for a while… And after making a real meal out of it, the result is something that then needs to be consumed while it doesn’t really look tasty at all: a bit burnt even. Then after consuming there’s cleaning to be done so you might understand what all of this is heading for in the long run.

I’m in serious need of a time-out, so I’m taking one and only focus on the job section for now until that is all sorted. Yes it is kinda tough to me because I find it difficult to put myself first and it feels like I’m running away from others but I figured out that if I don’t put myself first I can’t be there for anyone else. So it will always be a Catch-22 if I don’t decide to do what is best for me. I’m a fast learner but a slow achiever neither is good/bad, just extremely inconvenient at times.

Last week’s other activities involved chasing up someone in the US about an order that I placed a month ago, voting for the first time in London and discovering a most beautiful art deco library [polling station] five minutes from where I live, finishing complex time-consuming flash animations, getting frustrated about recruitment agencies and their inconsistent terms of folio sizes and CV formats, I have twelve different versions of both: the number is still increasing…

So yesterday was May Day in the UK, my parents’ Wedding Day, Liberation Day in the Lowlands and a day for me to relax and clear my head. It was sunny and perfect to go for a stroll in the woods. Today will be another day of annoying recruitment registrations… At least my parcel from the US finally arrived this morning. A creative gift: something I wanted for years, to brighten my day and hopefully someone else’s when I will use it… and I’m eager to!

© Gijsbrechts My gift… ‘And she started writing her love a letter each day’

The Search for Transition

My Source

A New Beginning

Things are not always what they seem

My Tree of Wisdom

Fragile but Strong!

Juggling Words

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A while ago, I think it’s about two years, I registered with a Lowland version of something similar to Friends Reunited here in the UK. It’s a website to find childhood friends again, I registered just out of curiosity and to see who was on there. Quite a few people contacted me through email ever since, wondering what has become of me. At times it might be nice to hear from people from the past and it’s even nicer to hear what kind of impression you seem to have left or what memories. All of them seem to remember me sketching and drawing during lessons and breaks and some even kept my drawings all those years which is quite flattering. But I have to say I have doubts about the whole thing lately because I started to fail to see the point of all this when I discovered a pattern.

Let me explain: you’ll get an email in at some point, just a short one with an introduction about the sender and ending with the usual questions: how are you, what are you doing these days, where do you live, are you married, do you have children etc. And then you’ll end up replying to their email, carefully juggling the words trying to keep the balance between past and present. They usually ask me how my parents are, especially my dad; all my friends loved him because he was always interested in them and would ask questions or tell them one of his many stories. So I end up writing them that he passed away and tell them that I’m fine about it since most people don’t understand that, to me, death isn’t something final. It’s a transition which I celebrate, but how can you explain what took me years in a few lines?

Then there is a next email in which they proudly show a few pictures -followed by a request for yours- of their husband and/or wife and the children, because that’s how life is supposed to be to most: settle down and have a family. Of course I end up juggling with words again since I’ve always been an exception to the rule and my lifestyle is regarded as being at least a bit odd, but since I’m a creative person, even an artist to some, it’s accepted that I don’t have children and I’m not married *yet*, so I’m told. If I’m ‘lucky‘ I will get a follow-up email and then it usually stops there. Why you wonder? Well because I have nothing to tell them except for bringing up some memories and that’s where it stops. How can I relate to someone that has missed about 20 years of my life? How can I explain how I became the person that I am today?

One other thing that bothers me is the fact that some of them still have connections with my family somehow. I’m not afraid of telling them certain things, but I know I’ll take a risk by doing so and some things are better left unsaid. I really don’t care what they think of me, the truth will come out some day anyway but it doesn’t mean I should add fuel to the fire: they don’t need to hear from me, so it’s better to keep my distance, literally… After all, I moved here for a reason. I also believe in fate, if it was meant to be, these people would’ve stayed in my life for some reason, but they didn’t and I don’t feel much for bringing back ghost from the past just to satisfy their curiosity and hunger for a tiny snippet of information. I really don’t feel like keeping some channels open for correspondence…

There is enough going on in my life already without having the urge for expanding and getting involved in more time-consuming activities, I simply don’t want to. I would love to give my time to those who are actually part of my life, this life, here and now and not something that ‘has been‘… So I guess it might be best to put the profile on inactive. People end up having different walks of life, they choose different directions and paths which is only normal, but trying to keep something alive that is no longer there is simply a waste of time… I’d rather spend it in a more useful and far more enjoyable way: I met up with Ismoyo last Tuesday and had a wonderful time showing her around parts of London. She was over from NY for a few days to work on her project, a craft book which will be published and released in the US this year.

If you’d like to read more I suggest you’ll go over and visit her wonderful blog!

Only 6 days ago it was still a tiny root…