About Being Social On Media: To Link Or Not To Link, That’s The Question

Meeko’s eye is slowly improving, but he keeps it glued shut the moment I take him out his cage. He’s also gone from gnarling and grinding his teeth at me to desperately escaping my grasp and letting our panicked shrieks. He knows I am a sucker for sad, high-pitched squeaking… But I am relentless and as determined as ever to fix his tear duct!

If you’re always trying to be normal, you’ll never know how amazing you can be

• Maya Angelou •

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I am not sure what caused my weakness: was it the wine, the exhaustion, the low blood pressure, the momentary self-doubt or a combination?

Whatever it was, I did something stupid. I did something I never imagined I’d do.

I looked up my old friends on social media.

The ones who made me feel small all the time, only so they could feel bigger.

The ones who made me believe being different is wrong, only so they could feel happier with their boring “normal” lives.

The ones who taught me it’s okay to say goodbye to people who no longer fit in your life, for whatever reason.

Because some friendships just don’t last forever – thankfully!

For some reason, though, last Friday I couldn’t resist any more and I had to know: how many kids do they have already?

(I always imagined one of them turned total b*tch due to pregnancy malfunction and the other one would finally experience not everything in life is as easy as you’d like it to be – time to find out if I was right!).

Of course, having blocked them on Facebook was no help, so I turned to that other platform I use: LinkedIn.

(Through an anonymous window, of course – I am not that stupid! LinkedIn tracks everything and everyone, don’t want them to know I’ve been snooping around).

Of course, useless information was my part and I laughed at myself. Then I clicked on my own profile and…

On a sort-of-random note: I’ve heard this song on the radio a couple of times. Brought back memories of my 90’s youth – and I still love her voice! The title seems appropriate for my misdemeanour-ish LinkedIn excursion, too 😉

I realised the last time I logged onto LinkedIn was… several months ago. I think.

And the last time I’ve used it for anything productive was…

Never.

Literally never.

Be it the wine, the exhaustion, the low blood pressure, the momentary self-doubt or a combination of it all, but I suddenly couldn’t find a decent answer to the question: why am I on LinkedIn?

I am not a fan of social media in general. It tends to give me headaches. For instance, every five minutes I spend on Facebook, I feel myself getting stupider.

All those advertisements in between news updates make me frustrated and yawn a lot, as they’re all the same. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen all.

January 1^st, 2022 I will be Facebook-less. I have yet to check and/or back-up all my photo’s, but then it’s bye bye Mark Zuckerberg – FINALLY!

Why not go a little further and wave goodbye to LinkedIn as well?

I am really starting to feel happy about this idea… I’ve never been approached by a recruiter or have found a way to gain clients through LinkedIn – I don’t spend enough time on the platform to really make it work for me.

And I am too disinterested to try.

What about you? Are you on LinkedIn? Why (not)?

Please let me know how you feel about LinkedIn (as Facebook already lost this battle for me) and help me decide whether to stay or leave 🙂

Hope your week was great ❤

About Pets, Vets, And Animal Cannonballs

From now on, I’m going to post once a week (I’ve got WordPress added to my action list!). About my life, because that’s how this blog started: as a diary. By going back to the basics, I’m hoping to learn more about myself – and the world I live in.

An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language

• Martin Buber •

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It all started a few months ago, when I noticed one of my gerbils squeezing his right eye.

A few trips to the vet left me with an antibiotics-type of eye cream and a very upset little gerbil.

You see, my Meeko doesn’t like to be picked up, let alone be tortured back into health – which is what I imagine he must think of it all, seeing as after two weeks of wriggling about fruitlessly in my hands, he started menacingly grinding his teeth at me.

Which in gerbil language means bad business. Very. Bad.

Meeko also steadfastly worked his way through 4 (!!) oven mittens and 1 welding glove (my dad’s), but only after having perforated my left hand in more ways than you can imagine with his tiny yet incredibly sharp teeth.

Maybe he grinds them to sharpen them…?

After 2 weeks of antibiotics, 4 oven mittens, 2 perforated fingers, 1 gnawed-on thumb, and NO eye-improvement, I had had it.

I went to a “specialist in small rodents” aka a “gerbil doctor”.

Meeko (on top) in healthier times

Well…

What can I say?

It cost me a rib and then some, but at least the woman knew what she was doing.

Outside the fact, of course, that Meeko managed to escape her examining table a whooping 3 times, twice within the first ten minutes.

Then once more by literally LAUNCHING himself from his travel box into the air and onto his path to escaping all those awful hands. Like a teeny tiny, furry cannonball he shot out!

“That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a gerbil do that!” the gerbil expert exclaimed, baffled.

I had to agree, baffled.

The vet concluded Meeko has an inflammation of his tear duct and needs other meds than the ones he was getting.

Those meds not only cost me another rib, but I fear will cost me a few more sets of oven mittens as well, considering I now have to administer 2 droplets into Meeko’s eye, three times a day. That’s 5 more torture-moments for him than before!

Oh, and the good news? (For the gerbil doctor, at least.)

If this doesn’t work within 2-3 weeks, I have to come back so she can perform a CT-scan on Meeko.

Which will cost me all my remaining ribs.

I love my pets. Let nobody ever think otherwise!

I try my hardest to give them the best care in the World.

But if this new medicine doesn’t work, I consider moving to Switzerland to become one of those screeching mountain marmots, seeing as they best vocalise how I’m feeling right now:

The best part of last week, of which my gerbil’s health issues and my emptying bank account were really the least of my frustrations, was this song:

I need more of this on the radio, please! So I can wake up every day, even if it’s going to be a bad one, with a smile on my face and the knowledge I’ll make it through somehow.

Plus, it helps to drown out my inner screeching marmot.

How was your week?

About Being Sleepless Outside Seattle

From now on, I’m going to post once a week (I’ve got WordPress added to my action list!). About my life, because that’s how this blog started: as a diary. By going back to the basics, I’m hoping to learn more about myself – and the world I live in.

I lie awake, I drive myself crazy, thinking of you

• *NSYNC •

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Last Wednesday I saw her again after three months: my psychologist.

I started seeing her for my insomnia earlier this year, and miraculously she helped me fall back to sleep. Little by little.

It’s so weird to realise you don’t actually realise all that’s going on inside you. I mean: you think you know about all that’s going on in your head, when really you don’t.

Stress builds up and my psychologist told me my stress levels are running through the roof: they’re more than 90% full, so every little thing that happens during a day adds to that stress, overflowing me. Which leaves me, well, sleepless in the Netherlands.

Over the past three months, my sleeping has gone slightly back to normal. I say slightly, because I still spasm heavily before falling asleep and wake up every morning at 6 am on the dot.

But other than that, I was doing fine.

So fine, in fact, that I’d decided I was A-Okay!

Only… that stress gauge is still running and my brain is still accepting new stress-entries on a daily (and subconscious) basis.

The first time my insomnia hit me back – hard – was the day my mother had her medicine appointment at the hospital.

As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, I felt my head rage. And really rage: I couldn’t stop a single thought from wreaking havoc in my head.

I was mad, upset, lonely, disappointed and immensely sad.

All the hurt and fears from 10 years ago, when my mother had breast cancer, came rushing back as if they’d never gone.

Ahhh, nostalgia 🙂

It took me two attempts at meditation, one melatonin and, much to my deepest dismay, a regular sleeping pill to eventually pass out.

The second night I nearly saw through was right after my eldest sister’s and mine high tea.

Of which I shall never speak again (the monkeys, remember?).

My psychologist was all ears, and luckily all understanding, too.

“If there had been no direct causality for your renewed insomnia, I would have been much more alerted. You will be fine once you deal with this stress.”

She recommended a YouTube video (in Dutch, so no point sharing it here) with information about healthy sleeping, and advised me to take the “sleeping diet” the video speaks of: force yourself into a healthy sleeping rhythm by going to bed at midnight and waking up at 6am.

Seeing as I’m already doing the latter (for no explicable reason), I might as well try the first, too.

The idea is to force your body and mind into getting enough rest a night (5-6 hours of really good, deep sleep for 7-10 days straight) and to create more rest-moments during the day. These moments will actively help your mind work through your daily impressions, so it can prepare itself for full rejuvenation at night.

I hate waking up early, but I hate lying awake more.

And I love myself enough to give this a try ❤

How was your week?

About The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

From now on, I’m going to post once a week (I’ve got WordPress added to my action list!). About my life, because that’s how this blog started: as a diary. By going back to the basics, I’m hoping to learn more about myself – and the world I live in.

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The Good

The good this week was found at the hospital. Bit of an uncanny place to find good fortune, you’d think, and maybe it wasn’t all good, but at least it wasn’t all as bad as we thought.

My mother had an appointment with a nurse practitioner to go over her new medicine: what to expect and not to expect, that sort of thing.

Prior tot his appointment, my mother had received a list of the medicine she’d receive, and had gone berserk over the possible side-effects.

What didn’t help was that someone had allegedly told her one of the meds was “like a horse tranquillizer”.

Much like a horse my mother galloped into misery and made my (and my father’s) life quite unbearable too, for several days.

Anyway, the nurse practitioner kindly told my mother that her new medicine might make her nauseous, and, if that’s the case, she can use the second medicine to suppress that.

The good lay in her direct (yet translated) words: “We give these nausea suppressors to everyone with your type of leukaemia, just in case. But, honestly, if you need them, you’re the exception.”

Relief was dressed in a white doctor’s coat that day.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil

• Marcus Aurelius •

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The Bad

The bad has a habit of showing up unexpected. You can wait for it and it’ll never show its face, but the moment you turn your head because you’re distracted for a second, it overwhelms you from behind.

Despite the relief regarding the side-effects of my mum’s medicine, I couldn’t sleep that night.

All my anguish came pouring out, as if I were a volcano erupting.

You see, what I didn’t want to admit to myself (read: anyone) is that I am lonely. And tired. And scared.

It’s as if I always have to be strong for someone else. And everyone in my surroundings to whom I turn for comfort, turns me away to cry on their partners’ shoulders.

I felt a strange yet familiar feeling creep over me as I lay in bed.

I’ve always said I’d do it again if I had to, taking care of my mom, and I mean it still. I just never imagined having to, and that thought scared me.

Suddenly I felt very afraid mum would be that exception the nurse practitioner talked about…

It took half an hour of meditation, one melatonin and one regular sleeping pill before I finally dozed off.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

• Maya Angelou •

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The Ugly

Have I ever told you about the cherry pie incident?

I’m sorry, I mean the Cherry Pie Incident?

Well, in a nutshell: my eldest sister (of all people!) tried to poison me once by dropping a plate with cherry pie in front of my face.

I have hated cherries all my life, disgusting little things they are! Sis is seven years my senior, she knows this. But she pretended she didn’t…

To… prove a point I still don’t get? Probably. Like I said: I don’t get it.

Anyway, that incident, sorry: Incident unleashed an ugliness in myself (REVENGE! – Hey, I’m a Scorpio, it’s what we do! 😉). But, for the sake of our family, I try my hardest to stay polite.

That same sister invited me to a high tea yesterday, in a town not too far from mine. In fact, my town was on her route.

On. Her. Route.

ON!! Her route!

The “I could stand on a corner in one street and literally see her pass by” kind of on her route.

You know, I’m just making sure you get my point here:

I. WAS. ONNNNN. HER. ROUTE!

“Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkey-style!

She told me, after I waited for HOURS for a reply to my text “what time do you want to meet up?” that she assumed we’d meet there. Because:

“Otherwise I kind of have to make quite a detour to pick you up.”

???????

Do I have to write in details how this made me feel? Or with what emotions I stepped into my car to make sure I’d arrive late?

I’m never late. I was yesterday. Deliberately.

To prove a point I’m sure she didn’t get.

I’ve decided it’s been enough. People who bring out the worst in you are not good companions, even if they’re family.

I want to be like those three monkeys instead: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

So I’m going to deal with the Bad, avoid the Ugly and focus on the Good this week 😊

How was your week?

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About High Teas And High Times

From now on, I’m going to post once a week (I’ve got WordPress added to my action list!). About my life, because that’s how this blog started: as a diary. By going back to the basics, I’m hoping to learn more about myself – and the world I live in.

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Be careful what you wish for, lest it comes true!

• Aesop •

Last week I visited a museum with my middle sister. There was an exposition from Dalí, which I looked forward to, and of Eva Jospin’s work, which I knew nothing of.

Me and my sister concluded that Dalí must have had a very… dark childhood.

There were none of his famous paintings, but tons of his early drawings. You could tell it was Dalí’s, but honestly… I didn’t get them.

Hopelessly staring at drawings that didn’t tell me a story, I started to feel I am simply too stupid for art.

But then we turned a corner and there it was!

Eva Jospin’s Paper Tales:

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  I am in love with the amazing things this woman can do with cardboard! ❤

Learn more about Eva Jospin’s art here.

As you probably know from a previous post of mine (About Manifesting And More), I am interested in and experimenting with the Law of Attraction and something that is called manifesting: ask the Universe for something, and it will provide (in a nutshell).

To help me build my trust in the Universe, I’ve bought a book by Pam Grout: E2 (or E-Squared).

It provides 9 easy-to-perform experiments that are supposed to prove to me that manifesting is real.

Experiment 1 was to ask for a blessing.

Anyone who knows me longer than today, knows I am very critical.

I mean, when I ask for proof, I ask for PROOF.

I gave the Universe 48 hours to send me a blessing, then was hesitant to count my luck.

Within 48 hours I received:

• A panda book (I’m crazy about pandas, remember?)
• A new vacuum at work, one that actually makes my job easier!
• A compliment on my new glasses
• A long lost and already forgotten pen I found

But I finally relented and accepted all as a blessing, when my cousins came over for a visit and brought…

Strawberries! ❤

There was no denying the blessing there!

“Be careful what you wish for ’cause you just might get it”

In addition to Pam’s ready-to-use experiments, I’ve been conducting my own by asking the Universe for different things.

One thing I asked for to happen this month, was to receive an invite to something.

Today, my middle sister asked me along on a high tea.

Only after my eldest sister did the same thing a few days ago.

So you see: it’s all about high teas for me right now.

And high time, too.

That I learn to trust the Universe more. And myself.

Because after almost 34 years of believing I was the black sheep of the family, the one nobody took seriously, I now have a feeling I might actually be the opposite.

I am the one person people confide in, run to and…

Take out to high teas 😉

And that was my week.

How was yours?

PS: Oh right, I forgot! I have glasses now:

PS 2: Don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest if you aren’t already! 🙂