I am not trying to cover anything up with humour no more. You shouldn’t underestimate humour though. It is good to have humour in life, relativeren we would say in Dutch.

But I am not running away any longer. I guess I never really was. I just didn’t know all I needed to do was to forgive. Forgive me. Forgive others. Love. Love. Love myself unconditionally. Love others unconditionally and also let those go who I can’t be with. Let go and still love. Make peace with my decisions. Sometimes decisions are hard. But needed to be made.

Don’t get too attached a friend told me. Be free from desire. You can want things but you also need to be able to live without it. He is right. I wanted to run away from this. Keep my feelings, my desires, whatever I thought I deserved, what I am working hard for, but that isn’t good for me, is it? I need to be okay with life and every turn it takes me. Accept.

I have this other friend who believes in goals and dreams. Maybe he is right too. I mean you can’t leave everything to chance. You have influence and my other friend sees this too. ‘Make a choice, otherwise others will do it for you’. I am learning to say no. Choosing.

I am happy to have choices. And I am happy to keep a little journal and write down three things of the day I appreciate. Those journals; I love reading those.

All I have is now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. I have now. This is something mindfulness will tell me. I am not my feelings, not my thoughts. Now is what is there is.

And in the end I will die. I don’t know where I will go or what I will have learned or if I find my journals filled with thoughts and feelings important. I don’t read them now, so I won’t probably then. How about life without photography? Will I look at my photo books? I barely do now. Just the idea of them being there calms me in a way. Does it? I like that I can take the photos out. Look at them. As if the people in the photograph are with me. I guess they aren’t but in a way they are. You love them. So they are with you. You love and you let go. And if you get the chance to meet again; you do. Reconnect. Remember together. And live in the now. Nothing beats now. Buildings will fall and the nostalgia you feel and the connection to the building will be gone. But you have now and the love you feel towards a person doesn’t leave. Love doesn’t leave. It is always present. You only need to see it. See love.

Forgive

Love

Accept

Appreciate

We always learn negative emotions. I once learnt that the basic emotions were fear, anger, happiness, shame and sadness. Something in me doesn’t want to agree with this. Maybe I want my eggs the sunny side up; I love that expression. Well I mean see the positive side. I feel that appreciation and gratitude can be so strong and ever so present. That there are so many more positive emotions. That there are so many more subtleties amongst emotions. That is isn’t one thing or the other. Ambigious or neutral or all the colours of the rainbow, not black and white. Whatever you want to call it.

I guess it doesn’t even matter if there are more negative or positive emotions. They are here and they will come and go. There were times I didn’t want to live anymore. Filled with regret, shame and hopelessness. I know for me that those emotions don’t stay. And I wish I could tell others they don’t stay. I wish they would live. I wish they weren’t scared. Scared of themselves. Scared of their emotions. But I guess maybe I can’t. I am not sure. I experienced it and so maybe others can too.

I wish everyone love, hope, appreciation, the gift of forgiveness, acceptance. I wish others growth. Whatever that means. And I wish it to myself.