At the start of 2018, I had no New Year's Resolutions whatsoever. I had no idea of what I wanted to do this year, what kind of goals I wanted to reach. I just knew that I wanted to make a difference in this world, a change. I just didn't know how.

At some point, I was reminded of the Ecoeuros project. I'd walked past an Ecoeuros machine on my way to college for years and now I walk past one on my way to work every single day. I knew you could throw old cans and small plastic bottles into it and that'd somehow help the ocean. But that's all I knew. Besides, I'm not a big fan of oceans. Everything in it scares me. Except for turtles and sea cucumbers. Those are okay.

Despite my fear of the ocean, I went snorkeling in Cuba early in February of this year. That's when it hit me: my hypothetical children will never get to see the coral reefs I saw if we don't do something, anything for our planet right now. I decided to do just that through Ecoeuros. And what better day to tell you about my Ecoeuros journey than Earth Day? Brace yourselves, because what started as a simple plan to recycle soda cans and small plastic bottles soon became much more than that.

The first thing I did when I came back home from the Caribbean was research on the whole Ecoeuros project. Simply put, it's a sort of bottle deposit scheme. Here in the Netherlands, we have such a scheme for 1-liter bottles and bigger ones, but nothing for smaller bottles and cans. As a result, they are thrown away all the time, often by the side of the road. Especially the plastic bottles are a problem, as they'll end up in the oceans and will most probably never decompose. Ecoeuros makes it possible to have those bottles recycled. In return for your bottle (or can), you get to choose between a coupon that grants you a discount at certain local businesses, or a donation of €0,15. The RET, Rotterdam's public transport operator, donates those 15 cents to Blijdorp, the local zoo, which in turn uses the money to fund a project that fishes plastic waste out of the ocean.

I was immediately excited about this whole thing and couldn't wait to get involved. One of the machines where you can bring your bottles and cans is right on my way to work, so I started looking for stuff to recycle right away. I asked my boyfriend, grandparents and neighbors to stop throwing away their empty cans and bottles. On February 21st I brought the first can to what I now call the 'donation station'. But that was still only the beginning.

Soon after starting my research, I started noticing just how many empty cans and bottles were just thrown away on streets, in parks, and by the side of the road. Sometimes literally less than a yard away from a garbage can. I'm not talking about a can here and a bottle there, but dozens. Literally dozens. So one day I grabbed a bag, started walking and picked up over 20 pieces of litter that could be used for the Ecoeuros project and, indirectly, to clean up that big and scary ocean. That way I felt even better about what I was doing: I wasn't just helping the ocean, but also my direct environment.
Instead of having this stuff lying around, the plastic gets recycled. Ecoeuros works together with several partners to get that all done. One of them is called WasteBoards and these guys use plastic bottle caps from the Ecoeuros machines to make skateboard decks. As someone who recently started skateboarding again, I couldn't love this use of old plastic more!

Every now and then I took a can or bottle with me on my way to work. In the meantime, mostly on the weekends, I went out to pick up recyclable litter. After a week or three, I started to get annoyed with myself for the amount of plastic bags I was wasting on these picking trips. You see, bottles are fine, though sometimes a little sticky. Cans, on the other hand, are the worst. More often than not, I've been treated to a shower of beer, soda or energy drink when someone didn't finish their drink. All of that stuff ended up in my bags, which had to be thrown away after being used once. That seemed counterproductive, using so much plastic to help a project that focuses on keeping the oceans clean, so I made it a rule that I could only use a plastic bag if I'd found it on the picking trip itself or a previous picking trip. A quick walk around town can result in 4 to 5 bags. Still, I wasn't entirely happy using plastic bags. That's when my mom, who'd also started going on picking trips to help me, decided to make me a reusable, washable bag. She crocheted a bag from old cotton that might have been around when my country was under German rule sometime in the previous century. Her nagging daughter was finally happy and the quest for bottles and cans continued. I try not to look like too much of a weirdo, though incidentally, I will do something like walking onto a company's lawn because they don't clean up their litter. That's what you get for trying to dump ice tea cans in a pond.


A few weeks have passed since the reusable bag was made and I could go on zero waste picking trips. I've picked up lots and lots of cans and bottles since then. My parents pick up at least as much as I do and even my granddad has started picking up recyclable litter. Apart from the cans and bottles, I also started picking up other pieces of trash that can easily be recycled, but I think that's a story for another time. For now, I'm just happy I can do this. It gives my life some kind of purpose. My goal is to have collected 1000 bottles and cans for Ecoeuros before the end of this year. Believe me when I say that I will make it, purely based on the number of bottles and cans I find on the streets of my hometown. So I finally found a way to make a difference in this world, but honestly, I can't do it on my own. If you're in the Rotterdam area and bought a can or bottle of soda, please bring it to an Ecoeuros machine once it's empty. You can find them on subway stations Beurs and Eendrachtsplein among others, as well as on Rotterdam Central Station. If you're not anywhere near Rotterdam, please consider just using less plastic bottles and cans, pick plastic-free alternatives whenever possible and maybe, if you're up for it, clean part of your street every now and then. If we all make some small changes, it will add up to a big one. So let's do this thing together and save those scary oceans of ours!

What's the first image that comes to your mind when you think about Cuba? Do you think about classic cars and cigars? Rum? Or maybe Che Guevara and communism? These were always the first things that came to my mind when I was thinking about this Caribbean island. I thought maybe that would change during my visit to Cuba. Spoiler alert: that did not happen. In fact, this is what went through my mind during my Cuban adventure!

Varadero, Cuba, is known for one thing: its beach. It's about 12 kilometers long, the sand is a beautiful shade of broken white and you can walk into the ocean for up to 60 meters without the water ever reaching higher than just up to your hips. Needless to say, the place attracts tourists like crazy. The Cuban government wasn't born yesterday, so they built big all-inclusive hotels along what's called the Most Beautiful Beach in the World. After two decades of this, the peninsula of Varadero has turned into one big strip of hotels. Early in February, I was staying at one of those places, sulking over the fact that I was stuck in this overly touristy place after my trips to the Yumuri Valley and Havana. I only had one full day left in Cuba and was not looking forward to spending it on the hotel grounds. I'd already been to Varadero's center and thought there was nothing new for me to explore within 10 miles of my hotel. I was wrong.

Early in the morning of our day in Cuba, my parents and I walked to the bus stop of the Hop On Hop Off bus. Our plan was to see where it would take us and visit the far end of the Varadero peninsula.
The bus had just left when we arrived at the bus stop, but stopped literally in the middle of the roundabout when the driver saw us coming. We paid 5 CUC per person for a day-ticket. Even though we had no idea what we were going to do and where we'd end up, it was nice to know we could take the bus back to our hotel at any time.

The bus first took us to the center of Varadero, then turned around to follow the Autopista Sur to the other end of the peninsula. I'd more or less insisted on sitting on the upper deck of this open-top double-decker, where the sun quickly burned me to a crisp. I can't even say it was worth it, because there wasn't much to see. Hotels, trees, beach. Then I spotted a sign telling me there was an old cave just off the road that could be visited for 5 CUC. We remained seated though, as we thought the entrance fee was a little high.
A few minutes later we saw another sign. 'Muslims Trail - The Other Varadero' it said. This sparked my interest, but we still remained seated: there wasn't a bus stop in sight. We eventually got off when the 'Giant Cactus' stop was announced. It sounded funny, so we decided to check this Giant Cactus out. After a short walk, we arrived at a gate with a sign next to it: 'Giant Cactus - The Other Varadero'. We stepped through the gate and were soon greeted by a park employee. Bienvenido al otro Varadero!


'The Other Varadero' turned out to be a hidden gem. Most tourists staying in Varadero barely leave their hotel and have no idea this actually exists. It's made up out of three minuscule nature preserves, carefully tucked away between the highrise hotels and crowded beach. The cave and Muslims Trail were two of these preserves, the Giant Cactus the third. There's an individual entrance fee for every single one of these areas. It's not cheap, but believe me when I say it's worth it. You're not just far away from the Cuban illusion that the all-inclusive hotels provide, you also get the chance to discover a unique little part of the country by yourself, without tour guides and other tourists. That's right up my and my parents' alley, so we happily paid the park employee the entrance fee and followed the path to the Giant Cactus.

The Cubans weren't exaggerating when they called their cactus Giant Cactus. It was huge. Seriously huge. At over 8 meters tall, it was an impressive sight. I couldn't quite believe this cactus was already around when pirates still roamed the Caribbean. That awesome piece of nature made me appreciate Varadero a whole lot more. It also made me want to see more of el otro Varadero. After a short discussion, my parents and I decided to skip the cave because of the high entrance fee, and walk the Muslims Trail instead. I was very excited about this trail. I thought Muslims weren't really a thing on the island of Cuba, at least not a big enough thing to get their own trail, so I couldn't see what this place was all about.


After a fifteen-minute walk and another entrance fee later, we were at the start of the Muslims Trail - which had very little to do with people who pray to Allah, as it turned out. The leaflet we received upon entering told us that Cuban smugglers from centuries ago were called Muslims. They'd had their hideouts here in Varadero, so they could overlook as much of the ocean as possible and see the Spanish Armada coming. But that wasn't all this little leaflet with a map of the trail told us. As we started walking, we came across stones with numbers on them. The corresponding number on the paper gave information on the flora, fauna and history of the area. The English was very weird and at times unclear, but I loved the effort that was put into it. Once you'd gotten the hang of the peculiar use of the language, it was very interesting and informational.

Within minutes we were far away from the Autopista Sur and in the middle of a subtropical jungle. I loved every second of it. The trail was uneven and scattered across the forest floor were the most intriguing sandstone formations I'd ever seen. I saw caves, rock formations, trees growing on top of all of it. I even saw a 2000-year-old grave in one of the caves. As I was walking, I felt like I was going back in time to when Muslims had used this trail and no one had the idea of destroying the peninsula with countless hotels.

My sandals and feet became a sandy shade of brown when I neared the end of the trail. I could hear the Autopista Sur again when the trail split in two. I took the right path into the mangrove, where I hopped, skipped and jumped my way from stone to stone until I reached a small lake. Tiny fish came swimming right up to me. I fell in love with that place. I loved Cuba already. I'd snorkeled at Playa El Coral, seen the countryside in the Yumuri Valley and walked the streets of Havana. But even though I'd enjoyed all of that a lot, I loved exploring this little bit of Cuban nature by myself even more.


I'd lost all track of time and most of my sense of direction when I finally reached the end of the Muslims trail. The exit was literally a small opening in the solid wall of shrub by the side of the Autopista Sur. I came scrambling out of it with dirty feet, scratched legs and a huge smile on my face. I thought Varadero's peninsula had nothing to offer but hotels and souvenir stalls. But that's the Varadero that was carefully constructed for tourists. El otro Varadero is, like the name says, different. It's calm, quiet and a place you definitely need to see if you're every in the area. I promise it's more than worth your time!

In the weeks prior to my trip to Cuba, its capital Havana became some sort of mythical place in my mind. Camila Cabello's single Havana had just started getting airplay in the Netherlands, my parents and I had been watching documentaries on Che Guevara and on top of that I was reading Cuban Heels, a book by Emily Barr, which takes place in Havana. But the thing that stuck with me most was the line 'Sunrise again, over the city of Havana', from a song by a band called Colourshop. That song made me dream of Cuba's capital every night, until the day finally came when I got to visit La Habana myself.

Had I been by myself, on a three-week backpacking trip, I probably would have spent three or more days in Havana. I had neither time nor money for such a trip, so I booked an all-inclusive for nine days and planned as many excursions as possible. After a full-day jeep safari and a trip to the city of Matanzas, it was time to go to Havana.
Early in the morning, my parents and I were picked up from our hotel and boarded a big tour bus full of Dutch tourists. I'd taken a book with me, because even though the distance from Varadero, where I was staying, to Havana is just over 100 kilometers, I'd heard it could take ages to get there thanks to bad Cuban infrastructure. I ended up reading a grand total of five pages. The roads were actually decent, but the real reason the journey flew by was our tour guide, Jesus. He told us all about Cuba's history, heritage and current situation. Plus, because his name was Jesus, he called us his apostles, which made me laugh.


We arrived in Havana before we knew it. Literally before we knew it: one moment we entered a tunnel in the middle of nowhere, the next we came out of it in the middle of the city! We had an entire program of activities ahead of us, but first we drove through the city center on our bus. Classic cars drove by on all sides as we passed El Capitolio and the museum where the boat Castro and Guevara took to start a revolution on Cuba is on display. For the first time, I also saw street art that was more than a simple tag. The sun put everything in a beautiful light. I was falling in love. Havana felt so alive.


Once we got off the bus, our group was spread out over a few classic cars dating back to the 1960s and even a few from the 1920s. I immediately claimed a blue Plymouth; you can't tour Havana in a classic car that's not your favorite color, so I had to have a blue one.
Our drive took us to El Malecón, Havana's sea barrier. He told us that the latest Fast & Furious movie had a scene shot here. I have no idea about that, because I only saw the ending of that movie when I snuck into the theatre early to get a good seat for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
We drove past the almost abandoned US embassy, a former mafia hotel and stopped at a tiny park where we switched cars with other people from our group. This time I claimed a beautiful red convertible. We continued our way through Havana, driving down El Malecón again. We left the ocean behind eventually, drove past Plaza de la Revolución and ended up at a cigar factory.


The visit to the cigar factory was by far my least favorite part of my day in Havana. Apparently, it's one of those things you absolutely have to do if you visit Cuba, but I didn't like it. I appreciated the talent and effort that goes into hand-rolling those big fat Cuban cigars, I really do. But the place smelled awful, I'm willing to bet at least half the employees have pit black lungs and they try to illegally sell you cigars. Not my cup of tea.

I left the cigar factory as soon as possible and took my time photographing street art on the walls near where our bus was parked. I also bought one of those Che Guevara hats and wore it all day. I bet my one communist friend would be proud of me.
A few moments later our group boarded the bus again and we were brought to Plaza de la Revolución. Now this square is truly legendary. History was written here. Fidel Castro held tons of his famous speeches here. The faces of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos look down on you from the facades of two government buildings. It's one of those places where you feel like you can touch history. I ran around like a headless chicken to get all the pictures I wanted. Had I been alone, I would have sat down at the base of the José Martí Memorial, overlooking the Plaza de la Revolución, drafting this blog post right then and there.


Way too soon I had to get on the bus again to go to Habana Vieja, or Old Havana in English. Here we had a complete three-course meal in just over 15 minutes before starting our walking tour. I'm supposed to have seen places where Ernest Hemingway drank cocktails, but I was more focused on the colonial architecture and finding good places to leave my street art stickers than anything else. At one point I almost lost the group, because a colorful portrait of Che Guevara had caught my eye. I went running down the cobblestone street for pictures, ran back when my camera refused to focus, grabbed my parents' camera right out of their hands, ran back again and finally took a good shot. You can't imagine how happy I was to see this piece of art in real life that day.


When the walking tour ended, we had about two hours to roam the streets of Habana Vieja by ourselves. I spent this time taking even more pictures of a certain Che Guevara portrait, buying souvenirs and looking at beautiful buildings and cars. I was enjoying Havana a lot, until a guy came up to me on a busy square, said 'Long hair', and walked on. To this day I still don't know what that was about. Even in Southeast Asia people didn't react to my hair like that. In the end, I just nervously laughed it off.


The sun was already beginning to set when my parents and I walked back to the meeting point where the bus would pick us up. We followed the Canal de Entrada. People were fishing, meeting up, happily chatting away in rapid Spanish. I felt almost sad because I wasn't part of that relaxed life. It reminded me of the book Cuban Heels, of its main character studying Spanish in Havana. I could see myself doing that too. Havana was as enchanting as the Colourshop song had painted it. So maybe one day I'll be back in Havana for more than just a day. Maybe I'll be studying Spanish. Maybe I'll be living there for a short while. Who knows? Life can take you to some unexpected places, and I'm more than ready for it.

One year ago, I embarked on the scariest journey of my life: I started therapy. After a lifetime of denial, I faced the fact that I was gifted. I did not handle that fact too well. Looking back, I don't think I could have handled it any worse. I broke down completely, then finally asked for professional help. And so I ended up in therapy.

Therapy is scary. Starting it is scary, finishing it is scary and everything in between is scary as well. It makes you look at yourself, find the flaws and fix them. It changes you. I think that is what scares us as humans the most in this life: change.

I had no idea how much of an impact therapy would have on me. I sort of knew it could change me, but didn't expect anything drastic to happen. And nothing drastic did happen in the first two sessions. In fact, my therapist had trouble diagnosing me in those first few weeks. I'd come in to find help accepting myself and giftedness, but my therapist felt there was more than met the eye. Depression was ruled out: I was too optimistic and active in every aspect of life to suffer from depression. I didn't have a serious personality disorder either: I didn't show any sign of having one. Eventually my therapist came to the conclusion that I had an inferiority complex with a hint of anxiety. The latter explained my extreme hyperventilating in high school.

Getting an official diagnosis, a label, affected me in two major ways. First, I only felt relief. I finally understood myself, all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place, I finally knew what was wrong with me. Then it hit me that something was wrong with me. I saw myself as a broken toy that needed fixing. I bawled my eyes out because I had a huge problem that made me feel completely worthless. Accepting my diagnosis was no easy feat.

I can't say I'd fully accepted that I had an inferiority complex when I started working on getting rid of it. Acceptance took me about a month. In that time, I learned more about my diagnosis and how to tackle an inferiority complex. The thing about an inferiority complex is that it warps your perception of reality. Your neighbor didn't say hi to you this morning? They probably hate you. Another blogger has a bigger audience? Probably because your writing is awful. Every single thing you see, every thought you have, it all becomes a personal attack. You feel worthless all the time. Just not good enough. Never quite good enough...

In the next couple of months of therapy, I learned to identify the thoughts that were full-on attacks. I learned to notice them as they were starting to form, instead of long after they'd ruined my day. I had to take a close look at every single thought I had. What was the reason I had a negative thought? How did the thought make me feel? Was there any concrete evidence that this negative thought was the truth? Slowly but steadily I started to change the way I think. I replaced negative thoughts with positive or at least neutral ones.

While I was working on changing my thinking patterns, which was an intended change of course, I also noticed that I was changing in other, unforeseen ways. I cried a lot more. Literally anything could get the tears flowing. Diaper commercials, travel pictures, a text from a friend. Anything. To this day, I still have emotional outbursts like these every now and then. They're not all that frequent anymore, but they're there. I think that's because I learned to acknowledge my emotions instead of ignoring them because, as was my logic at the time, it didn't matter if it was me who felt that way.

Far scarier than the sadness were my angry periods. Every two or three weeks I'd explode. All the negativity would come out in one big burst. I think it was a side-effect of therapy: back when I wasn't fighting the inferiority complex, self-loathing came out of my brain slowly. Slowly but steadily, like a polluted spring. Then, when I started challenging the inferiority complex, I basically blocked the outlet. Every now and then the pressure became too high and everything would come bursting out. I was very hard to love whenever that happened. I lashed out at everyone, provocating them, drawing them out in hopes of them saying something hurtful, so I could point at them and say: 'See? I don't have an inferiority complex, people really do hate me!' It was a weird and painful form of denial, which lasted longer than my time in therapy did. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

Spring became summer as I continued battling all my negative thoughts. I was about as stable as a nuclear meltdown and suffered a major relapse when I realized how badly my college had damaged me over the three years I'd studied there. These months were awful. Progress was slow, painstakingly slow. I'd become aware of the flaws in my thinking patterns, but wasn't strong enough to prevent myself from making the same mistakes over and over again. I started looking for coping mechanisms. One of them was simply asking questions. Sometimes, when I was so deep into my own little spiral of negative thoughts that I couldn't find a way out anymore, I'd simply ask people if my thoughts were true. 'Mom, do you hate me because I'm so emotionally unstable?' Asking a question like that takes some courage, but it helped me a lot. I still do this nowadays. Life is too short to doubt someone else's feelings. Better ask for clarity.

Asking questions was some sort of last resort for me. If it didn't help, I'd accept defeat, tell myself to try again tomorrow and seek distraction for today. Reading and writing sadly didn't work for me. The tornado of destructive thoughts was too loud for that. I found solace in YouTube videos. Short enough for my chaotic brain to focus on, loud enough to drown my thoughts out and also visually distracting so my eyes wouldn't wander to things I didn't need to see at that point in time. Jacksepticeye and Markiplier got me through 90% of my bad days.

By the time I turned 21 in July, I was able to turn my negative thoughts around or cope with them on difficult days. August came around and I ended therapy. Finished. Done. Yet I was still emotionally unstable as could be. On top of that, I had to bring everything I'd learned immediately into practice during my gap year. The gap year had never been part of the plan, but I was forced to take one thanks to my former college. However, I was lucky enough to land a job in translation early in September. That's when I noticed just how much I'd changed. With a new environment, new people and new possibilities in my life, my inferiority complex came back swinging. This time I was prepared though. In the months that followed, I had a few angry outbursts. I felt worthless every now and then. But I never feel the way I did a year ago. If I get close to feeling that way again, I write everything down the way I learned in therapy. It's not always easy, but at least the inferiority complex doesn't control my life anymore.

Looking back on the past year, I can barely believe how much I've been through. Therapy was challenging and painful, so much so that I couldn't write about it until just now. I had to take my time, not just in accepting my diagnosis and changing my thinking pattern, but also in being open and honest about my situation. That's why I've waited a full year to tell my story. Because even though my time in therapy ended months ago, it also took me months to find emotional stability again. Months to get over the anger, frustration and sadness. Therapy shakes up your entire life like that.
It is scary and changes you more than you can ever imagine. But in the end, it's all worth it.