I am my own home, and I am my own community.

S: “If you want to satisfy your needs higher in the hierarchy, you will need to act with more advanced skills beyond surviving, like being able to trust and rely on others for support.”

But I don’t like bankers…

M: “One step at a time.”

How are you feeling now? What do you need? What can be done to make it better?

Some days are good. Some days are bad. On a bad day I cry it out. On a good day I laugh, and sometimes laugh with a little tear.

E: “Just smile and bounce.”

Swing dance is a nice metaphor for life. I was drawn to it for how happy and relaxed the dancers were. As I’m learning, I realise behind that is a very strong core, both in terms of muscles and sense of self.

J: “This is next-level consultancy that companies pay huge money to externals for. And you do it voluntarily in-house. Sure, you get yourself into trouble all the time with your proposals and talks, but isn’t it much better than being unhappy?”

I think this has been the biggest compliment and recognition I’ve received in my career. The second is “I keep wondering how you ended up at a bank.“ and I said “Well I am switching.“

I wouldn’t mind having someone bike with me one day heh?

For a year I just wanted to be by myself, and I thought that’s for the rest of my life. I was biking in a forest in Rosmalen, and for a biref moment, I thought, hey, maybe one day I could let someone be in my space. And if/when that happens, it would be a sincere, safe, shared space - based on mutual trust, not forced, not compromised.

Anything besides self-exploration and self-liberation in this life is poopoo.

Eventually all the warm feelings will stretch and blend into my baseline. Then there will be days where it doesn’t cross my mind at all. Then I’ll know all this time, it has always been me looking after myself.

S: “I picked this quote from Carl Jung for you - ‘I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.’”

Z: “Be more like your cats, like ‘Hey, can you give me a confirmation that you love me?’”

SBSK: “Grow your own wings and fly away, you butterfly.”

I Never Liked You: “Everyone is potentially feminine, and everyone is potentially gay.”

Glas, Mijn Onvervulde Leven (2023): “Eigenlijk heeft hij heel veel.”

And there he looks into the future through a telescope.

Goed is goed genoeg.

Het hoeft niet beter te zijn.

Maybe there’s no such thing as perfectionalism for me. I wasn’t striving for flawlessness; I was simply coping with my anxiety, coping with not knowing my worth otherwise. And now… I really don’t care if something is ‘less perfect‘ - it’s not an intention, but an outcome.

M: “I was never worried about that. Because you were full of hope from the very beginning. You have always been you. The circumstances didn’t allow you to be who you wanted to be, or do what you wanted to do. And now you have that all sorted out.”

Myself in 2017: “Girl you have fun out there. It’s okay now. It’s okay.”

A postcard I sent to myself from Taiwan before coming to the Netherlands. Took another 7 years… but I’m okay now :)

I think… objectively I’m a much more useful person to the world now when I’m calm, relaxed, and take care of myself.

I remember at the therapy intake, I said ‘I just want to be a useless person…‘ See healing started from not calculating.

「懂得选择，不要放弃 」

「怎么舒服怎么来，该放弃就放弃 」

It is the title of a book from years ago - one of those ‘chicken soup‘ books. I’ve grown to unlearn that and come to this: Just give up on the wrong things and wrong people. Be free, give up, let go and take care of myself. It’s okay.

A: “It starts from just being a happy person. Everything you want will come naturally when you’re happy. For those bad people, sadness is the gateway to manipulation.”

I’m surrounded by good people now.

I have never meant it more than I do now, that I know I’ll be okay.

Because I know what safety and peace feel like now. They come from within myself.

If one day nothing else makes me feel alive, this still does - The Garden of Earthly Delights by Jheronimus Bosch (~1510) and Speculum by SMACK (2019).

The quirky, artistic depiction of indulgence and temptations, sexuality and humanity, with incredible details and symbolism.

I: “You’re everything in one person.”

M: “Hee, dit is geen gevaar. Ik kan dit aan. Ik hoef niet meer in de overlevingsstand te schieten.”

Is your life dominated and driven by trauma, or are you free?

There is nothing that I have to do, only things I want to do.

I’m not a wall flower. I’m a wild flower.

Muurbloempje, een persoon die meer de behoefte heeft om niet door iedereen gezien te worden.

M: “Better late than never, right?”

It’s like realizing I’m lesbian, or I’m a male in a female body… I’ve been looking for the sense of connection in the wrong surrounding this whole time. And now I’ve found my community.

I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

I don’t owe this world a child. I don’t owe anyone anything.

Like an octopus, you know? I have eight legs to stand on the ground now, that if I lose one or two, I’m still okay.

Z: “你要自由。你要自由。你要自由。”

E: “I have done my part in this life. Everything now and in the future is fucking vacation.”

E: “That only proves you’re human.”

T: “Welcome.”

I cried uncontrollably at a performance and waited to say thanks to the artists. I said ‘I have only really been living for a year in my life’. He hugged me and said, ‘Welcome.’

Maybe everything I’ve been through was just to bring me here, bring me to this moment. And having lived this moment, everything I’ve been through is worth it.

I went for a walk near de Noorderplas after a long struggle to get out of home. A choir was singing by the lake, de Noorder Diva’s. A group of grandma’s dressed in orange, singing old Dutch songs, dancing, with such radiating energy. I didn’t understand what they were singing, but I just stood there and started crying. A grandma at the front saw me. She looked at me, drew a smily curve on her mouth to me and gave me a hand heart… twice.

I enjoy being happily useless and ordinary. And it’s okay to not achieve things - let me be a mediocre artist, an average nature-lover. But a good person living a full life.

The world is small - a bed and a table; the world is big - you doubled my horizon.

M: “You say you want to live. You should act like one.”

This is a person who sometimes takes 3 or 4 hours to drag herself out of bed. This is a person who cries tears of excitement to a swinging grass in the wind. And that’s okay. I try. Every day.

You challenge me. You calm me. You make me believe in the person I’m becoming.

Stray Birds (1916): “Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love.”