'Have fun bye'
Last year I stared at my phone in disgust. 'Have fun bye'? I was going to go abroad for three weeks, I had no idea if there was going to be wifi and the only thing my best friend said was 'Have fun bye'?! I couldn't handle it. Not at all. You see, saying goodbye for a longer period of time is an art form. It's supposed to make you feel something, and I'm not talking about the mild annoyance this text made me feel.
As the months passed, I noticed that my best friend wasn't the only one who isn't great at this kind of goodbye. That's why I'm writing this post: to teach you how to say goodbye like a pro.


In my humble opinion there are five steps in the process of saying goodbye. Don't get them all mixed up or things will get awkward. Believe me, my words are all based on years of experience. Let's just start with step 1, shall we?

So imagine your best friend is leaving the country for three weeks and you only have one day left with them. What do you do? Well, you certainly aren't going to shrug and say goodbye early, no, you're going to make every second count! You don't have to be in the same room to do this, you can just keep texting or talk on the phone the old fashioned way. But if they tell you they have to go in half an hour, saying goodbye already is a big NO. You better make those 30 minutes count as well!

Eventually you will have to say goodbye, but sometimes silence says more than words. Or maybe you just need a little more time to find the right words. Either way it's a good idea to take a moment of silence just before you say goodbye. Just appreciate the fact that you have this person in your life and remember they'll come back soon enough. Then, just before things get awkward, move on to step 3.

Now we've all said 'bye' often enough. Nothing special, nothing difficult about that. But I'm not talking about a normal 'bye' here. This isn't an 'okay bye' kind of occassion. You gotta make this one special. You're gonna put your heart and soul in those words and let that friend of yours know how much you'll miss them!



I'm a firm believer that you should practice what you preach and I usually follow my five steps in real life. I'm the queen of crying after a goodbye. But when it comes to an online goodbye, it's a bit more difficult. You see, this is not just a weird tutorial post. This is also a goodbye. Not a permanent one, but I have decided I need a break from the internet. In a few days I'll be on a plane to Southeast Asia and I won't come home until the second week of August. I usually schedule some posts when I'm gone for such a long time, but I can't put the work in right now while knowing I'm rushing these posts, posts that won't get the love and attention they deserve as I'm not there when they go live. There's also this little thing of me just not feeling it when I'm writing. It makes me sad, but I need to find my writing voice back. I think Southeast Asia is the perfect place to get some time away from the internet and get my shit together. I'm going to miss you all like crazy, but it's for the better. I hope you guys won't forget about me. I'll see you in August...

There is a big part of me that really wants to start this blog post with some double entendre (yay, for being dirty-minded!), but I have decided to keep things nice and chirpy today. You see, things are looking up for me at the moment. I still don't know where my life is going, but at least I'm feeling much better. On the rare moments when I do sink back into a black pit of sadness, people like Becky from The Owlet save me by, for example, tagging me in the Self Love Tag, which is actually about appreciating yourself. Even though I'd told myself I wouldn't do tags anymore, but I couldn't say 'no' to this one; I needed some positivity.
It was a little difficult tag for me to write though. Apart from the name that makes me think of different things, I can't help but singing 'YOU SHOULD GO AND LOVE YOURSELF' while writing this post (yes, all caps were necessary because I only have one volume on the rare occasion that I sing and that's loud). Anyway, I feel like I'm getting way of topic, so I'll just get to listing the rules and answering some questions.

1. Answer all the questions honestly (damn, there goes my plan of making it all up)
2. Tag five people who you want to bring a bit of happiness to (can't I bring them pizza instead?)

The way my ex-boyfriend and I split up - over text, without giving ourselves the chance to talk our problems out. I know that his mental health made it difficult to be in a relationship and I was breaking down mentally as well, but the way we ended it was just... wrong. I regret that breakup in every single way and would change it if I could. I hate knowing I made a mistake I can't fix right now.


1) Music by De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig. I started listening ironically, as a true hipster, but ended up actually liking bits and pieces...
2) Trash tv such as Wicked Tuna. Brainless binge watching at its best.
3) Fake ghost hunting videos on YouTube. Pure genius to see people pretend they saw a ghost while they clearly didn't and can't act.

I'd love to spend less time thinking about things I can't change. I spend too much time thinking and overanalyzing my feelings. The latter is a result of therapy and will probably come to an end some time in the future, but for now it's really frustrating to know that your mind is messing with you, yet you can't make it stop quite yet.


I used to do that a lot in October, but it's become a lot less frequent since then. Last time was exactly one week ago. I was watching the Dutch version of Ink Master and one of the tattoo artists was wearing a tiny sun hat. I don't know why, but grown men in floppy hats make me laugh out loud for ages. Every time this guy was on screen I burst out laughing and I'm not ashamed to admit that I fell off my chair and rolled over the floor laughing.


Recently that's been Sterrenstof by De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig. Before that it was a song called Free by Emeli Sandé. Half Moon Bay by Train always did the trick when I was in high school. I could go on like this for a while, hahaha.


2) My desire to make a difference in this world; I don't know how to actually make that difference, but I can work on that.
3) My hair; all my friends hated my hair when I was growing up, but I quite like it now that I'm grown-up and don't care about high school friends' opinions.


Most of my happiest memories took place in Novato, California. Looking back on them now, it's difficult to pick just one, but walking to the pool with my friends and seeing a group of deer cross the street a few meters away is a memory that always makes me happy. It's a small but special one.

So there you have it. A little happiness, a tiny bit of sadness, and one rule left to follow: I hereby tag Kanra, Kathie K, Jerneja, The Girl with an Accent and Louise. Now you go and love yourself! (And yes you may take that whichever way you want.)