My memories are mine - 2

This period in Darwin was probably a crucial time when the anorexia set it, according to Diann. It was when I felt homesick. The 13th of July and that was also the day I told myself that I wasn't going to drink beer anymore, I was only going to drink vodka and orange juice and I was only going to eat fruit, yogurt, muesli and maybe some veg. Diann said that this was me, trying to get a hold of what was going on. I was trying to deal with homesickness by eating less and being strict in every way possible. That made me feel better, but it was Anna and things probably secretly went downhill from there.

But I was still laughing, I was still happy and still living the dream. Isn't that what's expected of you when you're doing what you've always dreamed of? For me to have to admit that I wasn't as happy as I thought, is like saying I'm not meant to travel. But I am and it's still all I want. I did my year in Oz so I should be happy and proud of myself, but instead I just feel like a proper failure. I feel like I've messed up the best year of myself by letting Anna in. But maybe if I hadn't let her in, I wouldn't have stayed the full year. I might have had to face up to the fact that it was time for me to come home and calm down for a while. But I would never have done that, ever. Because that's admitting defeat. Anna was the only thing that would have gotten me through and she did. She suited my personality so well so maybe I should be grateful to her, for keeping me out there..

For me to be experiencing something I would treasure forever and to be creating memories that would be precious to me for the rest of my life, was the perfect time for Anna to come along. It's only natural that she would kick in to sabotage it all and try to kill my dream. This is what Diann said yesterday. Destroying and ruining things we treasure the most, that's what's she's best at. Because to love something and to do it, I surely shouldn't deserve that??!! Diann said this was the time for her to ruin my dream. It was her time to mess up my experiences that were supposed to be the best. The time that I've been calling "the best year of my life". The year that I worked so hard for, to make it happen. It's the nature of Anna. I've never felt like I've deserved anything good in life. So for me NOT to fully embrace my year in Oz by depriving myself of sufficient food and nutrition would give her the opportunity to ruin it for me.

I do remember so vividly not feeling like I deserved to be so happy and so full of life and being in Oz. It was all too overwhelming for me to be experiencing all this goodness without having any problems or without having any guilt about it. I would even think about people back here in Holland and Ireland and would feel guilty for being able to live my dream and for them to be missing out. And these thoughts would only be supported by getting emails from friends or family telling me how jealous they are of me, for being downunder and always going for what I want. So that would make me thing: why should I be allowed to be traveling and why aren't they allowed to be as happy as I am? But now I know, that if anybody wants a life of travels, they can have it too. They can make it happen, they just need to dare. And living a "dream life of traveling" has it's downsides too. Just like every lifestyle, there's good and bad. Missing home and missing family all the time is hard to live with but it comes with the lifestyle and it's the choice you make. But that's a whole different issue I suppose.

From the day of my homesickness, Anna kicked in big time and I got strict in every way possible. And I wouldn't let myself enjoy things properly because I didn't deserve them and because my body wasn't always full of beans. Even when it came to boys. I was the best of friends of Christian. We worked together and I had a secret crush on him. But I never told him and never acted on it. Because that would mean too much happiness, if he were to have felt the same. It only making sense to me now, why I didn't let him get too close to me. I never realized why I didn't show my feelings. I didn't deserve him, not by a long shot. He was far too good-looking, far too nice, too Italian and totally out of my league. I remember the day I started to have feelings for him. I was on a high and I had butterflies in my stomach and life was amazing. But I soon got all those feeling out of my head and we stayed the best of friends. Because how could I ever even think that he would be the slightest bit interested in someone like me, when he can have any girl he wants?
Non-deserving is the answer.

At work, whilst running around the restaurant, I'd often feel dizzy or woozy in my head and my stomach would be spasming and crying out for food but it only made me work and run faster around the restaurant. Especially serving food all day and being around people who are eating and enjoying themselves. That gave me total buzz. It gave me strength to not eat. I'd work 7 days, if they had the work. I'd work 10 hours a day and I needed to, because what else would I have done? All the backpackers in the hostel would chilling by the pool on the roof in the blazing sun or going to see the sights or in the pub getting drunk. Living the normal life of a backpacker. But I worked my ass off, literally and every week the jeans I was wearing got looser and looser. I needed to work all those hours and save and save and save as much as possible to get to Asia. Without all that, I wouldn't have gone to Thailand and I wouldn't have gone to Singapore which was a goal I had set myself. And as Diann has told me before.. by setting goals, you're so fixated on achieving that goal that all the opportunities that come along whilst working towards that goal, go by without being fully appreciated, experienced or embraced. And that's exactly what happened.

And then I think about Singapore. I was there for 5 days, alone. It was great. Everyday I was walking and walking and walking and seeing the sights and getting to know the culture. I was full of confidence. All was great because I'd finally got to Asia. I had made it happen and that I was doing it, alone again. I had left Oz even though I had the opportunity to stay. I could have done another year of backpacking and people tried to persuade me. But that would have meant I would have been wasting another year. Because that's how I started to feel. I was wasting time in Oz and I was throwing away the most important years of my life, by not working on a career or working at a proper job. That's why I left. I wasn't going to be like all the other Irish out in Oz.. they were known for just getting drunk and having fun. Nothing else mattered. But I wanted to be different. I wasn't going to waste another year.. That's what I said outloud, to people who were trying to get me to stay. But deep down, there was something telling me that I wouldn't last another year away from home. I knew there was a problem, something was wrong with me.. I knew that I needed to be closer to my family or else I wouldn't get over what it was that was making me not feel deserving of food, of fun and of experiences that I've dreamt of for so long.

I'm getting slightly off-track here and I know I've been over this a few times. But I think it's important that I fit this into the puzzle, along with everything else. I have to make peace with it. Diann said yesterday, I don't have to call it my year of traveling "the best year of my life". I can call it "a year of my life with great experiences". And she's right. Because I've often called others years the best years of my life too, like when I was in college or when I went to London and Austria. But I don't have to lable them. Just like 2008, I don't have to call it the worst year of my life. Not at all. Because it wasn't, it was the hardest time of my life and a challenging time, but not a bad experience and I needed it. I've had great experiences in all of these years. Diann also said, that I've survived it all. I can proud that I stayed a whole year in Oz, even when I was going through hard times underneath. I've survived Anna. She says I was so close to death but never got hospitalized or carted off in an ambulance and that I've achieved something far more amazing than any amount of traveling, all by myself with some guidance.

I know she's right. She's right in saying that I've survived Anna and that I've achieved something so special and that my year in Oz was a year of great experiences and that I did well to see it through. There'll be more experiences, there'll be more traveling. At that time I knew I had to leave Oz, I used the expression of "wanting a normal life" as an excuse but I was secretly listening to my intuition and I acted on what it was telling me. I knew I needed to come back even though I still needed and wanted to travel. Anna tried to ruin it, my experiences in Oz but she didn't. I had a great time in Darwin and I met 2 of most amazing people in the world, whose friendships I'll treasure forever, Lisa and Christian. So I'm grateful for how things have worked out. I know I had to go through it the way I did. I had to happen and now that I've seen how it has effected my year in Oz, I can slowly come to terms with it. I haven't lost my precious memories, my friendships or my life and that's far more important.