I feel like I'm drowning.

In stark contrast to yesterday's post, today I feel defeated and exhausted. :/

Dear B,

It has been a long time since we talked and whether that's because you actively don't want to talk with me or you don't care much for correspondence is another story.

So, you don't know this, and it likely doesn't matter to you, but today, I found out you're doing okay, and it makes me genuinely happy. :)

Sometimes, my heart breaks.

I don't know what to do, and I don't know what I can do. But I think about you and I love you and I want the world for you and sometimes my heart breaks for you.

You deserve to be happy and free. You deserve to be able to make decisions for yourself, without an invisible leash around your neck. Your babies deserve all of the love and kindness that the person who promised to cannot/will not give them.

And I don't know what to do.

How do you help someone who is in a difficult, abusive, wrong mess? How do you get them out of a horrible, disgusting situation when they can't/won't make any moves on their own, and they can't/won't ask for the help they need?

How do you make someone understand that there are people there for them and that care about them and that will support them and that will not judge them?

What can you do, besides get your heart broken?

It is so easy to turn your back on them when the hole they're in gets deeper and deeper, but that won't fix the problem. And it needs to be fixed. The cycle needs to break.

But how do you actually do that?

Note to self: Consume less, create more.

Feeling: Accomplished

I finished a poem! I haven't done that in two years apparently.

It's different from what I usually write in the sense that the subject matter is something I've never addressed before.

And I really should write more often.

So, anyway: shameless link.

How do you make your dreams come true?

I am so very anxious.

It's been three weeks since I submitted my thesis, and I should find out how I did within the next week. And I want to do good, but I also don't want to be disappointed. What is the proper way to manage one's expectations?

Besides that, I need to find a job that I can be passionate about. I mean, doing statistical analysis about the effectiveness of advertising campaigns two days a week is fine and my colleagues are wonderful... but I want to make the world a better place. How do I do that? Is there a job for which I am qualified that will allow me to do that and pay me enough to make a living?

Then, some time at the end of next month, my building will be demolished and I will need to find a new place to live. But the non-student housing market in Amsterdam is so expensive and confusing and what's up with people posting fake listings?

So, there's a lot of pressure to get my bits and pieces together, and it's freaking me out.

Being an adult is hard.

Being an adult thousands of miles away from my family is even harder, I think.

Sometimes, I worry that I am subconsciously sabotaging myself. Like, come on, Sue-Anne. You can do this. It's okay. You will not waste your life away.

This post was brought to you by my messy thought process.