Real life

1

She enjoyed her bike ride on the dike, the wind, the smell of the sea. The only thing that such a ride brought about was the nagging feeling in her stomach. The silence made feelings and emotions come to the surface. Guilt. The feeling that she fell short and: you don’t do that, that’s not right, is it? Made her think and reflect, but the overtone of a different feeling prevailed. But now she had chosen for herself.

A happy feeling that suddenly flowed through her, the feeling of being weightless, of missing a burden, made her throw her head back and laugh a liberating happy smile. She felt free, finally! She would have preferred to throw her arms in the air as well, but then they would probably have to scrape her off the asphalt, so she kept it to one arm.

She allowed herself one more time to think about what had made her feel free and then it had to be enough. Occasionally it was allowed, she was not a robot and there would be triggers, but she was happy with her decision.

She turned her gaze back to the asphalt of the dike stretching far ahead. Her gaze a bit blurred, her thoughts started flowing, really, promise, for the almost last time. She knew she had done the right thing, but she was allowed to think about it.

After everything she had done for them, she was now all alone again. Sister passed away, always there for her sister’s husband and children and for what? For some reason, she didn’t know, they didn’t want her anymore.

She would have been there for them too much, crossed her boundaries for them, sought confrontations for her nieces and when she stopped letting herself be walked over and found out that love only came from one side, it was over.

She had always been there for everyone. Until she couldn’t take it anymore and she stopped. And that was so against her nature. On one side it gave peace. No longer having to think about what someone else wanted or needed. But now there was also room for guilt. Well, what was new? She felt guilty for everything, all her life because she was always afraid whether she was doing it right, whether she was not forgetting anyone or shortchanging anyone.

She no longer kept her mouth shut for the sake of peace, no longer said yes and amen.

But now, through a training in letting go and living from her heart - which had given her a few nice bestsellers - and to really choose for herself and not care about what someone else thought of her, she finally felt free. Even in writing her books, she could let go of what someone else thought of her, what was decent. Except for the love scenes, that was still a bit difficult. She grinned broadly.

She felt the wind in her hair as she forced herself to consciously enjoy cycling on the dike again. The sun on her face, glowing on her crown and cheeks, her crotch hurt from the saddle, she had to cycle more often, but she preferred to walk with her Husky.

She obliged herself every day to walk or cycle - her dog walked himself in her large wooded garden, garden-like forest, what was it? - otherwise she would sit in her beautiful house all day, writing or reading or staring out over the beach and water.

She had bought the sweet little house (well, more like a residence, but it was lovely and cozy) herself, when she became successful with her books. And occasionally she also sold paintings. She used to do that: painting and drawing, but that caused too much stress. She was too perfectionist in it. When she stopped she felt guilty, of course, what was new, because she was good at it, she had talent, how could you not do anything with a talent? She shrugged. If it made you sick... Then it wasn’t good for you, talent or not. Eitherway, she still used it for the covers of her books.

She didn’t have a very social life, everything happened online, she was alone, but not lonely. But happy and free and she no longer cared what anyone else, anyone here in the village, what they thought of her. Her family was probably the cause of this, she suspected that they were putting the blame on her. And of course she did, she was the one who had broken the ties, because as she had thought before: if love came from one side, it was doomed to die.

She was nice to and for everyone and yet no one liked her. Not family on her father’s side, nieces and brother-in-law. Even her parents sided with them. So why make that effort, put that energy into it.

She cycled back to her house and started pedaling a little harder, as if she smelled her stable. She felt this was a waste of time because she much more preferred to write or read, although she had enjoyed the sun and the wind for a while. And it felt good. She had been strong, committed to getting out for a while. All the better it was to come home.

She would sit in her conservatory that she had made her workplace so that she was close to nature. She could open the sliding doors, the weather was good for it, even though it was still a bit chilly and there were some clouds drifting before the sun every now and then. The conservatory was warm soon enough. She probably had to open the doors if she didn’t want it to feel like a sauna.

She cycled with her regular bike on a mountain bike trail to the path that ran along the baseball fields, tennis courts and soccer field over the large parking lot to the path that led to what used to be the outdoor swimming pool, but where now stood the house she had bought from her amazing royalty. It was a bit too big for her and her dog alone, but it was wonderfully secluded and only had the hustle and bustle of people going to exercise on weekends and she found that very pleasant.

As she bobbed along the path where roots from the trees that formed the forest tried to push up through the asphalt, several events played through her mind, events that caused her to choose for herself. Events in which people, her family, friends had consciously or unconsciously rejected her. Suffocated. Insulted. Had made her feel that she was not important enough to waste a single thought on her or just insulted her, thought they could say anything to her, as if it was written on her forehead.

And while she only acted friendly and nice and were there for others. It had brought her nothing because she was alone. She had two friends... Enough though. She had family but they cared little or nothing about her. Her parents maybe, they were getting old and didn’t realize that it was better to keep her to be friends than her brother-in-law. But it was good, because it set her free.

She let Yorrie en Kruimel run free in the garden, walked back with a freshly made cup of tea in het hand to the conservatory to sit behind her tablet and started writing.

All the experiences brought her where she was now: strong enough to do what she wanted to do now. And above all, to be able to say no. Her parents tended to say that she worked from home anyway and was her own boss. Now she would say: I have a deadline. Just ask your son-in-law or one of the nieces.

She stopped typing and looked out through the large window, at the garden of her beautiful house with lots of grass, great for her dog and cat. A few beautiful large trees, a natural pond and a few plants such as lavender, hydrangea, ribes that smelled so good now that it was in full bloom and a few other flowering plants of which she suddenly couldn’t think of the name. She chuckled to herself, that seemed to be part of her age, early fifties. It was actually ridiculous that she had to be fifty to find herself more important than others, to only do what she felt like doing and to finally be able to leave the effects of the bullying of the past behind her... almost. Not quite yet, but she only had it very occasionally and then only a little bit. The events of more recent had an effect on her, most likely because she had been bullied.

She looked at her screen again and ran her fingers over the smooth glass. It was amazing how fantastic this worked, how wonderful typing was now, how smooth.

… She found it difficult to say that she wrote Wolfshifter books. What? Wolfshifter, what is that? A difficult look. Yes, wolfshifter, fantasy. And then have to explain what it was without being ashamed of it. That wasn’t easy and did not work. She quickly started talking about her mafia books, which was easier to understand.

And someone who was close by and also wrote books but couldn’t bring herself to congratulate her when her book was published. There wasn’t even anything to be jealous about because she still had to do everything herself. The only thing she didn’t have was the costs.

Suddenly, very unexpectedly, her books became a success. Someone had found her and was so captivated by the way she wrote that she had passed on her name to a publisher friend. And now she was here. She could buy a beautiful house on a dike next to the sea with a lovely garden in which her Husky Yorrie, now impatiently kicking his front paws, his nose in the air, shaking his head, letting out all kinds of strange whining sounds, could run around freely.

She looked out the window again with a smile, but didn’t see the garden, but images of memory in her head of her crazy whining dog because he was just gone out of her sight and looked back at the screen again.

Yorrie lived up to his name, because he was smart and if necessary he would fight to protect her after he had come out from behind her legs after the first shock. He was a little cowardly until someone actually touched her. Then that person was not safe. He would jump towards that person, growling.

She stopped typing again after another series of whining and kicking, even front paws off the ground, shaking his head even more wildly, she shouted that she was coming. She understood. After she came home from her bike ride, she quickly put her bike in the shed and immediately sat down behind her IPad.

Cycling and walking did that to her: she got inspiration from it. But she also got that when she went to bed or when she took a breath. She saved her text and jumped off the bar stool. She quickly put on something other than her comfortable jumpsuit. Pants with a button and waistband while writing were not comfortable and made her belly swell. If she stood upright, which she did of course when she walked, she could wear normal trousers. Although she did make sure to wear as few pants with a button as possible. She put on pants with a smooth elastic waistband, fortunately still elegant with straight legs, a nice print and no granny pants or sweatpants. Fifty was the new thirty or so, right? She thought she was pretty smooth and her friends even though one was already a grandmother, while she was only a few years older than her, fortunately it was no longer the way her grandmother was, with such a grandmother dress with flowers. But she herself had all kinds of old age complaints. Back pain, joint pain, that kind of whining. Fortunately, it was still possible to live with it. She chuckled. And she turned gray.

“Are you going for a walk with me,” she called through the open sliding door. Immediately the tapping of his nails on the blue-gray tiles could be heard. She took his long leather belt and hooked him to his harness. Ideal. At first he always had a sludge chain on, but his beautiful fur coat broke off, it was now a bit more difficult to correct this strong husky, but luckily she had trained him well with the sludge chain and he listened reasonably well for a husky. “We’ll walk to The Garage, sweetheart, just to make an appointment before the car breaks down, otherwise I won’t be able to do any more shopping.”

She would go straight through the village because around was an hour and a half walk including Yorrie’s sniffing. And she had to go back all the way. When she felt the gravel of the path under her feet, she looked at the ground. She sighed for her own stupidity. “We have to go back, sorry, I can’t walk barefoot through the village.” She always walked her dog barefoot in the woods or over the outer dike along the water, even though she didn’t care about everyone’s opinion these days, barefoot to the village was still a little overboord for her, unfortunately. She had seen a man on a local TV station and he was walking barefoot through the hospital and he was not a live-in patient. She had been so proud of that man and a little jealous internally.

She hung the handle of Yorrie’s belt over a pole for a moment and was back quickly, had put on her sandals despite her ugly nails that she just couldn’t get healthy. There was no one who took a second look at her anyway. She was past that age. Her sister sometimes pointed out to her that she was being looked at... A long time ago, she didn’t see it and didn’t understand it either.

Despite the fact that she still felt young inside and was always surprised when, when she looked in the mirror, she saw an older version of herself, with wrinkles of sadness between her eyebrows caused by trying to stop crying. Her cheeks also seemed to droop a bit, her mother said that it was in her head. She chuckled. For once, she hoped her mother was right. But fortunately she also had laugh wrinkles. She liked to laugh. Smiling at other people to make them feel good, laughing with her friend Mariah, laughing at Yorrie’s craziness.

For a long time she had felt young, fourteen, then she had thought that now, that she had reached that age, she would finally belong. But that didn’t happen. And for a long time she had felt just as insecure as when she was fourteen. Veeery long. She sighed. She was glad she got rid of that. She felt good about herself. Partly thanks to her success. She was finally not mediocre in something. Did something with what she could also give others a few nice hours.

Still pleasing. That didn’t stop apparently, only now she did it for herself first, and the fact that others also enjoyed it was a nice bonus and felt fantastic... Secretly as she was honest with herself, she did it first for that, instead of for herself, that could not be erased from her system. In the beginning she had to be very careful that she was indeed doing it for herself and not to please others or to make money with it. Okay, out of her mind, now.