At the moment I am starting to write this, I am far away from my pc. It is a tiny idea in the back of my head, where the idle thoughts usually form, that grabs on to seemingly unrelated feelings and pours it into this text. At our farewell party, as we are packing up our suitcases and lives, in the plane...
As I was growing up my mom always used to say the right thing at the right moment. We, as her daughters, would sit in (ok, sometimes pretended) awe and marvel at her wisdom. She always used to say, that when she got older, she would write a book called 'Emma's wijsheden' (Emma's wisdom). The funny thing is, that the greatest lessons I learned from my mom, are the ones given by example.
The greatest wisdom that I got from her is: Nee heb je al, ja kun je krijgen (You've already got no, you could get yes), which combined with my personality got me places at a very young age, especially careerwise. You can only rise to meet expectations that are above your normal comfortzone. If and when you fall flat on you face, which you undoubtedly will sometimes, think lesson two: I can't do more than my best and chalk it up to experience. To this I added my own lesson: To overcome the initial disappointment, first bake and then eat cake. (Hmmm...suddenly a whole new explanation of my cake-baking abilities jump to mind....)
Another thing that I learned is that growing up is all about making choices.
When you feel that you have no choice, it can suffocate you into all sorts of trouble. At a certain point in your life, the choices start to become increasingly more difficult. Do I leave the island I grew up on, to seek my fortune elsewhere? Do I stop going to school and go work fulltime? Do I choose for the man that I love or do I love me more? Do I stay in this well-paying job even though I want to tear my eyes out because I am SO bored, because there is a worldwide recession?
Or in the case of my mother: do I go on organizing a vakantieplan for 300 kids, even though we've got no money? Lesson number 3: It is better to be sorry about things you tried that didn't take, than be sorry about things you didn't try. So you have to live back at home for a while, because you can't afford rent after leaving a situation that was not good for you. Or maybe you have to find a temporary position because you did not get you dreamjob. Or you find yourself washing toilets because you and you husband are saving up for a worldtrip...(no worry guys, we're not there yet). We sometimes forget, that even in our worst situations, there are people that are worse off than we are. Lesson number 4: You can always find time, resources and energy to help another, as long as you have life. This is also the reasoning behind: where 3 can eat, 4 can eat.
It is scary, jumping into anything new, whether you are 17, 19 or 30. Leaps of faith is what sculpts you into the person you are in the end. And even though we do not come from money, we are well equiped to face the world with what we got growing up.
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