Still

Hey Readerlings, it's your friendly neighbourhood rambler at the wheel. It's going to be a bumpy ride. Tune out now if you want something witty and light. Try your luck watching 'Look Around You' if you want something fun. And forgive any typos, I am not going to re-read and edit because I don't have the time right now.

Gosh, now it sounds kind of heavy here, doesn't it? Geez. Sorry. It's just that I haven't written anything for myself if ages and I know I should write about the last two weeks in which I was absent from the bloggesphere, but I don't feel like it. It was a busy time, in which there was not much space for my own thoughts, and it's all coming out now, when I really should be doing other things like the washing and packing for our little trip to the UK tomorrow. Not happening. Need to empty brain first.

It's just that suddenly, the last few days, I'm having a little 30 year-old crisis. Not that the crisis is 30 years old, but you know, the things 30 year-olds worry about. Like: 'What the hell is my life all about and why am I the way I am and where do I want to go and is this all making sense and who is really my friend and who should I spend my time and energy loving and caring for and where is the best place in the world for me and what the hell is money doing in my life making such a big mess and why can't I find the friggin' PAUSE button so I can take a breath and gather my thoughts?' That sort of lighthearted musings.

Didn't sleep well in France at all, but now that I am home I sleep like a baby and I don't particularly want to spend another 4 nights in a hotel, not that I don't want to go to the UK, I am so keen to see my family there, but I just want to be still. Still. Isa.

It felt so right to leave Australia and come here and help my mother and reconnect with my roots, but now I have been here for four months (exactly) and I feel completely torn away from my life there, in a good way, but now I don't know where I want to be. I was so excited about going back to uni, but now I can barely explain what I will be studying next year and I keep thinking that maybe I should be doing something else. But the things I think should be doing are not things that I want to do, they are things that I am good at or what others might enjoy me doing. Those not about me. And my life, in the end, is all about me. Right?

I am so good at caring for others, that I naturally do it. Caring in the sense of providing people with love and care. Especially the kiddies in this world. I obtained an 11-year old French shadow while I was in Les B. She loved me and followed me almost everywhere. I couldn't communicate with her much because my French is so limited, but she still loved me. I attract children. I just do. It doesn't take long for me to connect with them, and to make them feel understood and cared for. I speak kid language, and I am straight with them. I never have to try to understand them, I just know why they do things. It feels natural to interact with them. But you know what? I don't want to do it all the time! But then I feel bad because I am so good at it, and so many kids in this world deserved to be loved and care for and I want to love all of them and make them feel good and loved and happy so we can all hold hands and skip through the tall grass and roll down hills and fall in big giggling heaps of happiness. Every kid deserves that. Scrap that, everyone in the world deserves that.

And it feels a waste not to give the world my talent of loving and caring for kids. But it turns out I need more from life. I need something more. Why? Why can I not just be happy being a nanny? Why do I need more? What's up with my brain and heart and soul that spreading love isn't enough for my own happiness?

I love being here, but this isn't my life. This is where I live only a small part of my life. But it has a big, big, big part of my heart. Being here messes me up so much but I would never stop coming here. I love my Dutch Omafiest (bike) with its green lock clanging against the handlebars when I hobble over cobblestones. But then I also love my beautiful TOBy (Citroën C4) in Australia with its gorgeous leather heated seating and its wonderful wonderful functions. I love my family here, my friends, the food, the down-to-earth-Dutchies, but I also love my husband, my friends, the food, the no-worries-she'll-be-right-Aussies. I cannot give either up. But I cannot be in two places.

Like I said, things are currently muddled in my head. Lack of friend-connections. Haven't spoken to any good friends in a few weeks, been dealt a seriously shit emotional blow that no child (even adults are someone's children) should have to deal with (which I will (maybe) write about another day) and feel like a small flower floating on a very fast flowing stream. I have no control.

Oh, my dear Readlings, I could go on forever. But I need to do washing and eat lunch and send a birthday present to my twinlets back in Australia who've turned 5 today. My big beautiful girls. Spoke to them last night. I miss being part of their life but then I don't at all. Know what I mean?

I gotta go. Sorry for rambling, but you were warned. Lovely friends/vriendjes/vriendinnetjes, I miss you.

It's kind of scary that I am so emotionally unstable here. I really thought I was very strong. I must eat a piece of humble pie (to quote Alex from Jonathan Saffran Foer's Everything is Illuminated. My current book, it's good.). I am a mess and I am sorry. Mostly to myself.