It was just so special. I’ve barely slept. I’m just só excited by all the love, laughter, the emotions, genuinely touched by it all. The vulnerability, the openness, remembering all the good stories, remembering all the hard work. Wanting wanting wanting to graduate for years so badly and finally doing it. Just so happy to be part of this group of people who really want to be part of my life ❤️. Just so special.

I’ve lost a lot. Lost my mother when I was young, was an orphan. Moved to so many places. Talked different languages. Met so many people. Now I get to be 30. With a lovely partner, friends and family. So many people in my life that I didn’t know were going to be there. Little Frances never knew she could meet all these people, feel so loved and supported. And just feel like we could all have só much fun together!

My chosen family. I lost my mom, I lost my dad. I got chosen family. I am so lucky. To all the orphans out there: don’t give up! The road is long and bumpy but keep trying! Do your best, show up, try to appreciate and show care, love and empathy. You’ll be fine.

I can’t actually believe it. I’ll be fine and I might be able to turn much older than my parents did and I think I will be able to do it surrounded by lovely people. It’s so special.

I cried at the dinner after my graduation. My mom (foster mom) gave such a heartwarming speech. My mother in law was so kind. My friend, my dear friend wanted a picture with me and my other mom (also foster mom) couldn’t stop taking pictures of me with everyone. Just so happy. It truly was a celebration. Maybe not even just of my graduation but of my life. My life shared with these special people.

I hope you are doing well wherever you are. Until next time! X

Take it step by step, chica. I can easily feel overwhelmed because next to everyday stressors, I take on stressors that aren’t here yet. Today I just told myself I can take it easy. Focus on the near future. Not that I’m letting my long terms go but that I try to not get too worked up about it.

I can cook, I can also can get take away. No problemo. Financially, I will work it out and I think I’ll be okay.

For the rest I am so lucky and fortunate. Family and friends and a wonderful partner. I feel supported and loved.

Tomorrow is my graduation. Exciting!!

I hope I enjoy it and get plenty of time to enjoy hanging with everyone and that we may share many laughs together and hopefully the food’ll be nice and the atmosphere. I feel like it will be an evening never to forget surrounded by loved ones. Very special.

I hope you are doing well wherever you are. Until next time!

Hello lovely keyboard,

Hello lovely letters,

Hello lovely words,

Hello thoughts,

I’m just checking in.

You’ve been quite busy the past months. Getting to know your family in law, the friends of your partner, keeping up with your friends and family, taking care of them by listening or giving gifts or picking them up and dropping them off.

You have been busy. Busy reflecting on your life. On your youth and how you want others to have a different life or a different experience. How you wish others to be less lonely. Supported. Loved.

You have been busy by working 10 hours a day and helping out 25 students at a time in one hour. You have been busy bonding with them, correcting them, working with other colleagues and technical difficulties, you have three jobs at the same time. You have been busy.

You haven’t collapsed yet. But it’s time to stop and try to impress your partner by taking at least an hour to cook some dish which is tajine. Seriously, take it easy. Lemon squeezy.

So, I have decided to work less. And show up for events that I have the time and energy for. My philosopher friend would call this energy management. We’ve all got to deal with it somehow.

And yes I still want to cook and hoover and clean the beddings, separate the trash, do the washing and get the dishes cleaned. The thing is, I miss being on my own. I miss looking outside, taking a peak at the birds. I miss my sofa.

Thank god, I don’t have to be perfect, ha?! Who said life would be easy? Nobody did. There are a lot of responsibilities. But luckily there are many things to enjoy too. And mindfulness says be present while brushing your teeth, for example. I mean, maybe everything can be pleasant.

I enjoy a walk in the park, throwing a ball or kicking it with my boyfriend or blowing bubbles. I enjoy cuddling him. I enjoy his jokes. I enjoy my niece’s jokes. I enjoy spending time with friends who know me through and through. Who can feel like brothers and sisters. I enjoy hanging out in my bathrobe. I enjoy a shower.

I enjoy a lot of music and since my partner is in my life I get to enjoy much more live music. More to come this weekend! It also means a lovely conversation or sharing this music with others.

I hope you get to enjoy many things. And can feel peace even while doing chores or going about your daily life and fulfilling your responsibilities.

I hope you get to enjoy plants like I do and lovely meals with loved ones and that you are all right.

Take care. Until next time!

Ik ken de kronkels van de tunnel

De donkerte die zo koud voelt

Woorden die tegen de muur weerkaatsen

En hard echoën 

Wat ben ik dankbaar dat er licht is

Licht boven me en naast me

Die me begeleidt 

En deze woorden galmen

Van warm gezang 

Well, should I write a bilingual post? Something in English and something in Dutch?
Maybe, I’ll just keep it in English. I speak a lot of English during the week now. It is quite lovely.

I am knackered though. I have so many plans and I meet so many people in one day. My brain doesn’t know how to keep up. I want a house, a family, a lovely life. I feel like I already have that lovely life. That I am just so grateful.

I love my garden and I love my plants and I love living in the city centre. I enjoy the second hand shops and walking past the beautiful boats. It such a lovely scenery, especially in the dark with all the lovely lanterns. I love walking around Zwolle and enjoying the view of the old buildings. Every house that looks different and they are so tiny. It makes me feel home. Welcomed. Part of the city.

I am in awe of the city of Zwolle and riding my bike gives me a sense of freedom. I am so lucky to be a woman in the Netherlands. I am able to study and now I have become a teacher. I am living this amazing life that I am so so grateful for. Yes, it’s long hours, yes, I am losing sleep over it, yes, it is so much interaction but it is just so fascinating. I love connecting with people. I love getting to know them, I love helping them and I would love to make extra time for them. I answer all of their questions and I enjoy their company. I like having nice colleagues and getting to laugh with them.

I love my boyfriend. So much. I love him. I love spending time with him. Holding his hand in silence, throwing a ball at each other, kicking the ball, making jokes, looking at the trees together. We just enjoy our time together. We let the time pass. And it doesn’t feel like time wasted. It doesn’t always have to be so special. Just a nice walk is already just so lovely.

Other things are spooking around in my head though too. Lost loved ones and friendships that are changing. I am changing, evolving, growing older. New habits I suppose. Trying to brush my teeth more often, enjoying a lot of eggs during the week, cooking more. Staying in more. But still enjoying holidays. Life is just full of wonders I guess. And yes there are still evening where I think: what shall I do? I feel like I need more time just by myself where I am just sat at a table and I am drawing whilst listening to music. A student of mine made a drawing during class and now I am inspired to do the same. I have already made three drawings at my creative school where I teach.

I had a student who told me a story that I found really touching. I don’t know how to shake it off. I feel like it is coming very close to my own experience as a young adult and child and it fills me with fear and worry. I really like this student and I hope he will be okay. I think he will.

I am trying my best to be the best teacher for my students as I can be. Maybe I take it too seriously. I feel like I should be more fun. I wish I had more humor. At least I have a very genuine laugh.

Outside it is really windy. There is supposed to be a tropical storm coming. We’ll see.

For now, I don’t feel like having a tropical storm in my head and it is time to rest. So…

I hope you are doing well wherever you are and until next time! X

So much time has passed. I am so aware of time. I am aware of death. Death with a capital D. Scared is what I feel. Rushed. Feeling like I have to fit all my freedom into the upcoming 5 years. Then I will probably have children and need to be this outstanding parent who is great at regulating her emotions and is always available and has enough money and has her own purpose and her own career, does the cooking and the cleaning and the cooking needs to be outstanding every time and I’ll need to make it somehow and vegetarian and with meat and I need to somehow show my children the way. The way of life. While, do I have an idea?

Maybe it comes down to what a friend of mine said. My philosopher friend who is 20 years older than me. Your parents did what they could with the tools they had. Forgive them. Maybe that is what is going to be like for my children. I will make mistakes. I just hope they won’t hate me.

I hated my parents. All of them. All four of them. I was done with them. So mad at them. I wished for more attention, more time with them, I wished they could hold space for me, I wished they were able to say they loved me, I wish they had enough money to buy me clothes that I didn’t have to wear in 4 consecutive days. I wish they were just there and would still be today. I still have two. That’s something. I wish they would call more often. I wish they wouldn’t push me about subjects like politics or pollution but they do. They get to be who they are and so do I. This will be the same for my children and I.

I will never be good enough. Because that is just simply not the human experience. We make mistakes. We say sorry and learn from it, which would be the best outcome and sometimes we make mistakes or others make mistakes and we hold on to it. My god, I’ve been doing a lot of holding on to it. It might be time to let a lot go. Just to let it go.

Let the idea go of growing older and fearing death. Letting go that I am losing my mother all over again since so much time has passed and I am longer alive than that I have lived with her. Letting go of comments, letting go of moments of being too late or choosing a boyfriend that did not suit me or deciding I wanted children with a partner that didn’t feel like love.

Letting go of a horrible choice that I didn’t want to make but did. Actually starting to free my mind for other thoughts. Thoughts of love, understanding, compassion. Thoughts of hope.

Let me just think of hope. Hope looks like building the family life I have always wanted to live. But I will never have it. Plus, holding on to one thing to make me happy that is in the future won’t make me happy mindfulness said. Probably. It might enrich my life but my happiness is not depended on it.

I keep feeling very very strongly about it. It feels even a bit suffocating. I am losing sleep over it and I am planning for it. But it is also good for me to let it go. Let the goals go. Let it be. Let it rest. Enjoy what is here. Because as the song says is: ‘Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it is later than you think’.

I guess that is what I am feeling right now. In 12 years I will have lived as long as my mother got to live. 12 years is also the exact amount of years I got to spend with my mother. Time passes so fast. Since I have already spent 18 of my years without her. I say ‘spent’ them as if I am responsible for them. I mean I wake up every day whether I want to or not and I am very happy I do. It’s just I breathe and I eat, I sleep and I do try to take care of myself and I do take responsibility for my own life I suppose. I just feel like there are so many factors to your life and I really am utterly convinced that you are not in control over your life. There is a bit of luck involved, others are involved, the butterfly effect is involved, bad things happen, sickness happens, job loss, memory loss, accidents… So many things can happen. You can bump into a stranger and they can become your friend. Someone can give you good advice, something might happen, the snowball might start rolling… Life is full of opportunities.

Movies don’t make the bad character just bad any more. The character has a back story. And yes, it makes the movie so much better. Why you say? Because it is much closer to reality. A person is not just delightful, neither just deceitful. A person is not only jealous nor always completely welcoming. I don’t think they are. People must have their cranky days, must have their wicked ways.

We’re are all human and unfortunately not all at peace all of the time. Maybe there are exceptions but I don’t think there are. Even the buddhist practice patience. There you have it. They practice which means they must have their worries, their struggles. But they train the mind. Which is exceptional.

I am so lucky to be able to train my mind. I am lucky to be part of this life. I am lucky to speak two languages. I am lucky to live in this little city in Europe. I am lucky to own a bike. I am happy where I am. No need to move to the big city, no need to move across the sea. It’s just me and everything around me. And I am not even at the centre of it. My experience is. But I am just part of nature. Of everything around me. This earth and this universe. How lucky I am to be able to spend some time here. Soon it will be over.

Nobody else will have my experience. Other generations will have had different experiences and new generations will have other experiences to come. But for now I am here. And I am happy to be here.

It brings me to tears.

I hope you are happy to be here.

Take care. I hope you are doing well wherever you are and until next time! X

I’m at work and we’ll see how much time I have to write. I’ve put dreamy music on. I feel a little headache since I have a cold and I am somehow always tense in my shoulders. They have been tense for a year now. Let’s see if I can figure out how to relax again. Would be good.

Luckily after tomorrow I’ll have a slow day. I only have to teach one person and I get to spend my time however I want to. I’ve got really long hours. I choose them and now I choose to complain about them, haha.

I am considering another education. I might want to learn how to help people not from the Netherlands with the language Dutch in front of a classroom. I am not sure if there are any jobs for this specifically in my city. My tinie tiny city of Zwolle.

I’ve just been to London last weekend. The pace is so fast and there are so many people. When I lived there during Covid, two years ago, 2022, it was much quieter. Now it is just crawling with ants. Finally, Hans, my boyfriend, and I decided to go and hang out in a park. We were extremely lucky with the weather. Lovely sunshine on our faces. We didn’t talk for a bit and I went inside to get him some coffee and a cake. He was totally knackered and so I tried to take care of him by letting him just sit down for a minute. London is lovely and London is crazy.

We enjoyed a play called Hades Town. It has won multiple prizes and after watching it I understood why. It is the best play I have seen so far. I thought it was quite touching. It was about love and since Hans and I and a friend of mine called Becky had lovely conversations about love.

About how to rediscover love, about loneliness, about being the interloper, about how to show love, about the difficulties and also about the successes. It was quite inspiring I must say. Now that I have found love, I wish others love. I wished that to others before but maybe now even more.

For now I wish myself some rest. I hope you are doing well wherever you are and until next time! X