'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.)

Art work by Kanra Khan from The Lunar Descent

When I was nine years old a Dutch rap formation called De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig scored their first gigantic hit in my country. Their name is the Dutch equivalent of 'kids these days', which is funny to me because their main audience seemed to be kids back then. I wasn't one of the many kids who liked them though. You see, one night their song 'Watskeburt' was so firmly stuck in my head that I didn't sleep all night. I was angry and unforgiving. Nine-year-old me vowed never to like a song by De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig ever again.
Then 2010 happened. I was 14 years old and found myself singing along with my friends to a song called 'Sterrenstof' (Dutch for 'stardust') by... De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig. No matter how hard I tried, I could not hate this song. This caused quite some concern, but the follow-up was crap and I never spared the group a thought again.

Fast forward to 2017. I hadn't heard a full song by the group I loved to hate in years when I broke down crying, panicking and hyperventilating because I saw no way I could finish the most important college assignment of my life on time. As I pulled myself together on that morning in April, Sterrenstof came on the radio. I smiled, because it made me think of the time one of my classmates sang it in 9th grade physics class and completely screwed the lyrics up. The song brought so many happy memories back that I managed to sit back on my chair and write five full pages before the next wave of panic came. From that day on I put the song on repeat every single time I worked on this assignment that'd bring me a whole lot closer to being a certified teacher. Sterrenstof began to turn into something more than just a happy high school memory.

The first hours of writing were awkward. Even though the song brought back six-year-old memories that were all good, the group reminded me of my ex-boyfriend, who likes them way too much. I felt bad for listening to a song by one of 'his' artists. Until I remembered he hated this song. I felt better then. The song didn't just calm me down, it helped me get over him a little more. Yes, I was enjoying something he'd liked, but on my terms. It felt better and better to slam my keyboard relentlessly to the beat of Sterrenstof. It was then that I remembered I'd watched a documentary on these guys with my ex-boyfriend (hey, we all do stupid things for love) and that he'd told me one of these rappers, Willie Wartaal, was a certified high school teacher. That motivated me to no end. If a guy who had written songs about, and I kid you not, schnitzels of all things could become a high school teacher, I saw no reason why I couldn't become one. I worked and worked and worked, listening to Sterrenstof every single time.

As the days went by and my panic became more intense I noticed I needed more distraction than just the music. Also, Spotify was being a pain in the ass, so I turned to YouTube to get my writing jam. I'd seen the video clip for Sterrenstof about once or twice when I was in high school, but didn't really remember it. Half a minute in I was smiling from ear to ear for the first time since December. It's not a very special video, just the four guys from De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig being goofy on a hill and very awkwardly dancing, but it struck a cord with me. Okay, they have some weird ass songs that seriously pissed me off when I was a kid, but they were living my dream: they clearly had fun doing what they loved for a living with people they liked. It only motivated me even more to work hard on my assignment so that one day I could live that life too.

It was early May when I was rapping out loud in my room; rapping out loud in Dutch, something I'd sworn I'd never do, not even to save my own life. But I did it, every time I felt the panic creeping up on me. Every time I felt like my assignment was going to be shitty, I turned the volume up. Every time I felt tears stinging behind my eyes, I danced around the room in my own weird way. And when it all became too much, I'd rap. Softly at first, then louder and louder, even though I messed the lyrics up worse than my classmate from 9th grade physics. Eventually I looked them up and finally discovered that a song I'd seen as innocent was actually most probably about LSD. I couldn't care less. The song made me feel better and also had parts about overcoming addiction and making it on your own, which inspired me. And to be honest, yelling 'DAN BEN IK LOESOE IN DE SKY MET DIAMONDS ON MY NECK BITCH DIAMONDS ON MY NECK' made me feel better than I'd felt in months. I was sure I'd pass my assignment, assessment and kick ass in senior year, thanks to De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig.

Then things changed. I'd worked my ass off and had simultaneously learned the lyrics to one of the most misheard song lyrics in Dutch history when college just... well... screwed me over. Apparently I couldn't do what Willie Wartaal could, because college made it impossible for me to hand the assignment in and apply for assessment on time. I dropped out, but that's a different story (which you can read in this post). For what felt like the millionth time in 2017 I spent my days crying, thinking I was a complete failure. I didn't listen to any music, shut myself off from all of it.
I think I stopped crying after a day or three. I realized I'd made the right decisionby dropping out. I felt like a weight had been lifted, like I could breathe again. That's when I also played music again. The first song I listened to after dropping out of college was, of course, Sterrenstof.

It's now been well over two months since that first breakdown when Sterrenstof came on the radio. Since then the song has calmed me down numerous times, has prevented at least eight panic attacks and kept me from crying on a daily basis. It's the combination of happy high school memories, upbeat music and a video clip that reminds me of my goals in life that makes this song so powerful to me.
I have hated De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig, resented them with every cell in my body. Not anymore. Sterrenstof gets completely stuck in your head once you've listened to it, but I don't mind. I'm thankful for that now. If it weren't for De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig, I would have given up hope a long time ago.

Late March saw me end up on a psychologist's couch. It was red, modern and not even half as fancy as I'd expected. I'd already been struggling with many things for many months, but as I sat there I realized one thing: I really couldn't continue my internship and thus my education. I had to quit, or it'd be the end of me.

Internships had never been easy for me. In 2014 I started a course to become a high school teacher. German was my subject. In my first year I taught at a high school in Rotterdam for eight weeks, which almost killed me. In my second year I went back to my old high school for 20 weeks and had a good time teaching there. Then, in my third year, I went over to my high school's rival. At first it was all okay, but soon I was to blame for loads of things that weren't my fault and the school said they couldn't keep me on unless I did exactly what they told me. And I, idiot that I am, complied. With every week passing I felt worse and worse. I realized I didn't want to become a teacher anymore, but felt like I couldn't give up now that I'd come this far already. I completely ignored my own emotional and physical needs just to get my internship credits at the end of the academic year. In the process, I destroyed more than I could've imagined: my relationship, my weight, my bond I had with my family, my hobbies and both my physical and my mental health.

As January came around, I found myself panicking every Monday night, because I'd imagine all kinds of horrors that would happen to me on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when I'd go to internship. I'd be hyperventilating, crying over silly little things like diaper commercials, and finding excuses not to go. Some of these horrors actually did come true: I was yelled at while I was having a mental break down in the staff room. I was spoken to in a disparaging way on multiple occasions. I was to blame for problems that weren't my problem and in no way my responsibility. It caused me more stress than I could handle.
I could not go on like that. I asked both my college and my internship if it was okay if I finished the internship on the day of my assessment deadline, so I'd have the remaining six weeks of the academic year to clean up the mess inside my head. Both agreed. For a week or two I was happy. Then everything went to shit.

I had to get permission to apply for assessment, even though I'd already finished writing the entire assessment report. I'd get permission if a college teacher visited one of my classes. This happened the very last week before my deadline because they'd forgotten to schedule an appointment, which meant there was no time for a second chance if I messed up.
I messed up. Or so the college teacher said. He burned me down, said I was on the same level as a sophomore, that I hadn't met any of his criteria (criteria my classmates and I had never heard of until that day) and based on those criteria he wouldn't allow me to apply for assessment.
Somehow I convinced him to grant me permission anyway, but then the next hurdle came up: I didn't receive any feedback on my assessment report. My teacher just didn't read it. No feedback from her = no assessment for Envy.

By then the deadline was only four days away. I was panicking, crying, freaking out. It was worse than all the previous internship panic moments put together. I barely ate, barely slept and felt worse than I'd felt after my breakup. As I woke up to no feedback on the Sunday morning before the deadline, I took a drastic decision: I decided to quit. This degree course wasn't worth so much pain and panic for so many months. In November 2016 I'd already decided I didn't want to become a teacher, so why was I still putting myself through this much pain and stress for something I didn't want at all?

For a few days I felt like a complete failure. I hadn't been able to get a degree and become a teacher. That hurt. Not because I still wanted to be a teacher, but because my college had made it impossible for me to prove myself. Sure, I could've tried again next year, spend an extra year in college and become a teacher anyway. But I didn't want to. I hated teaching. I hated the lack of gratitude at internship. I hated the pointless college classes and I hated my career path most of all. I could not deal with this much negativity for much longer. And I definitely couldn't be unhappy at college for another two years. I chose happiness and health over my education. I don't think that makes me a failure. I think that makes me brave.

Sometimes we need to reevaluate what's important to us. I was forced to do so when my college screwed me over multiple times in April and May. As a result my already low self-esteem took a beating. I started having panic attacks and slept worse than ever before. I was going through too much pain for a degree that'd land me a job I didn't want. Now that I've quit college, I feel like I can finally breathe again. I smile more, I laugh more, I enjoy life a lot more. It might be difficult to get into a different college now, but there's no age limit to doing that. Neither is there an age limit to chasing your dreams, which is what I get to do now that I'm out of that horrible place. If you quit your degree course to chase your dreams, to follow your heart, you are in no way a failure. All you are is brave and strong. And a little bit scared and confused, in my case. Sometimes quitting can give you peace of mind and a chance at the life you really want. A college degree isn't the only way to find happiness. So don't be afraid to quit your course if the time ever comes.

I took art classes in high school. After about a year, I quit. The reason was simple: I did have the skills, but I didn't have pretentious meanings behind my work. If I wanted to draw a girl playing Quidditch, I drew a girl playing Quidditch. It drove my teacher crazy. She kept asking me the reasoning behind everything I did, where the inspiration came from and what the meaning of my artwork was. I had no answer for her. The idea was just there, out of nowhere. Maybe it's a giftedness thing, maybe it isn't. Either way, I quit. I was tired of being forced to make 'meaningful' art.


Fast forward four years. Occasionally I draw. Sometimes I paint on walls, sometimes I paint on paper. But most of the time I work on art journal pages. I enjoy the creative process and the endless options of art journalling and decided I wanted to share some of my work on Instagram. There was just one thing I didn't like about that idea: explaining my art in a caption. Loads of people online try to be artists by trying to be as meaningful as possible. It feels forced. Every post has some deep philosophical meaning behind it, even if that meaning is nowhere to be seen in the actual post. 11th grade art class all over again, no thank you.


Still I wanted to share some of the things I make, especially my art journal pages. So I took to Instagram anyway and posted my work. It was accompanied by only two lines of caption: a very short description of the work, followed by the three simple words 'end of story'.


End of Story represents my attitude towards my work. I make it because I like it. Period. I could write long paragraphs on inspiration for an art journal page, while in reality I made it simply because I like manatees or something silly like that. Art doesn't have to be complicated or extremely meaningful. That's what I'm hoping to show on my art journal account.


That doesn't mean there's no meaning behind any of my pages. Yet sometimes that meaning is too personal or too weird to share. And why would I want to share it anyway? The beauty of art is that everyone can give their own meaning to a piece. I don't see any reason for me to force a meaning upon you through a long winded and pretentious caption. End of Story.