I did not vanish but it felt like it

Over the course of the last six (6!!!!!) weeks every member of my family was sick! 

It all started when my mum and I returned from New York City. She started to feel unwell and spent almost a week in bed feeling poorly. After she got better my dad got a cold (man-cold - almost deadly) and after fighting it for five weeks on Sunday evening I finally gave in and went to bed with quite a high fever and am only today returning to the world of the world of the living.

Spending six weeks either taking care of your loved ones (including your dog who needs TLC probably the most - in his opinion) or studying for your finals (which you missed because of a horribly timed fever), there is no time for blogging.

Now I am officially on summer break and started thinking about things I want to do during my three months off and dedicating more time to blogging is high on the list. I got a long list of ideas written down in my Bullet Journal and am now taking the time to plan, write, prepare posts, taking photos, enjoying the creativity of writing, ...

So be prepared to see more action here over the next weeks and wish me luck being able to planning my blogging better when university comes back into my life again.

My most personal post yet

My last post was my 800th on this blog. On the one hand it feels a bit like a milestone but on the other I must say I feel like I lost my blogging mojo this year. So I sat down and thought about it for quite a while and I think I now know why that happened.

A really good friend (yes, I'm looking at you, Judith) told me last week that sometimes you just need somebody to listen to you rambling to figure things out. So I'm taking her advice and start rambling to you, my friends.

As some of you might know, at the beginning of 2013 (what a f**ked up year, I can tell you) medical problems started to appear quite regularly and no doctor was able to figure out what I really had. It took them almost the whole year to come to a result and I had more visits to doctors this one year than my whole life before (I'm guessing here but it sure felt that way). In the end we were able to get me on some medication which is working pretty well (knock on wood) and I am fine - most of the time. What I never realized was, how much energy this whole procedure took from me. I felt tired, had no motivation to do anything university related, felt drained and like crying a lot. I never really talked about it - either with friends and family or with you guys. The only people who really knew how hard it was, were my parents because they were right there, living through it with me. I cannot tell you how important mum and dad were during that time (I mean, they always are but I would have broken down way more regularly without them by my side). After being on medication for a while, it still took me a long time to regain trust in my body and myself again and I'm still not 100% where I was before this all started. I still have days where I don't feel secure enough to do certain things but I'm getting there - slowly but surely. I have a wonderful family and great friends helping me through more difficult times and it means the world to me when friends are attentive. One of my best friends recently postponed his leaving the bar because we had the same way home and he let me finish my drink first. He just knew that it would make me feel better if we went together. I will also never forget when I told Judith about my medical conditions and told her that I would totally understand if she would prefer finding a different babysitter her one year old son and she looked me in the eye and told me she trusted me. That literally meant so much to me.

In July 2014, after over a year of misery, anger and self-doubt, something clicked in me and I realized that I only had one life to live and I started changing - on the outside and on the inside.

I changed from this person

to this

in a year. 

Not only did I lose a hell of a lot of weight, I also gained confidence, feel way more happy because I'm able to do so much more and see such a huge difference in my experiencing the world, I also - and I think that's the thing I am most proud of - did it just for me! I don't care about numbers on a scale, I don't care about compliment (don't get me wrong, they are nice and flattering), I don't care about the size of me jeans. I just wanted to feel better in my own body and I absolutely do. It really hit me when I saw this picture of me and little cousin and liked it so much. I always hated pictures of me but this one I truly love (so much that I downloaded it from my aunt's blog just so that I have it on my computer).

I'm still trying to figure out my life and what I want to do. I'm determined to get my degree and to overcome my fears but I'm confident that I can do this.

After seeing all the things I accomplished in the last 22 months, I have to say that I'm really proud of myself but these transformations in my personal life also took a lot of energie and willpower. I really do hope that I will soon get back into the swing of things with living my life more confidently and being more sure about myself, getting my university degree back on track and getting back into blogging - which I really miss. I want to finally be the person I always dreamed I could be and I'm on the road to achieving this dream. I just know it!

Read you soon guys and thanks so much for listening!

A different kind of heartbreak

I'm not a mum (yet) and since I am an only child, I will never be a real aunt. Yes, I know that there is the possibility that I will marry a nice guy who has siblings but I won't have any nieces or nephews from my side of the family. But that's actually not what I wanted to talk about today. Maybe one day I'll phantasize about future men in my life with you but not today...

Focus, Karin!

Over the last 3 years I quite often mentioned the little baby boy of a good friend of mine. He was the first baby born in my big group of friends and we spent a lot of time together. We had long walks around campus when he was a baby and his parents were at a lecture, we spent hours at a playground the last two years when his parents were at lectures, he was the only guy I slow danced with at his parents' wedding (he was 2 years at that time), we did many puzzles and I got explained many books over the last three years. He will forever be my baby bear and he's so special to me. Honestly I love him as much as if I were his aunt.

Over the last months I was pretty busy, my friend got another boy so he's a big brother now and since he started kindergarden meeting was a lot more difficult and he got sick a lot - hello, germs. So we didn't see each other a lot and the last time I had to cancel on the day we were suppose to meet. I'm still sorry about that by the way.

I recently sent an e-mail to my friend asking her how they were doing and if her big boy still remembers me and she answered: "He was so sad when you had to cancel last time because I promised him in the morning that you would pick him up from kindergarden with me in the afternoon and since that day he regularly asks if you're coming today to pick him up. So I'm pretty sure he remembers you just fine."

I never ever knew how true heartbreak felt until this minute. I had to fight back tears and had real difficulties getting my sh*t together. He's my little baby bear and I haven't seen him in far too long.

Just don't forget to see your friends and their kids (if you are part of their lives - which I hope you all are) because you are an important part in their lives and they miss you. Time flies for us but not for them and I can only promise that I won't ever let so much time pass between spending time with all my little bears I am blessed enough to know.

Wow, that got corny pretty quick but this e-mail really hit me hard and I just had to pour my heart out.

On a more personal note

Friendship

 

I never had the feeling that I didn’t belong and I am so grateful for that. I always had awesome friends and my family was and still is the best I could have hoped for but I was always careful with the definition of a “best friend”. 

I always had one person I felt closer to than to all the others during school and both after elementary school and after high school those friendships ended. The one after elementary school just ended because we went to different classes in high school and were just not that interested in staying friends but the one after high school really crushed me. We also were in elementary school together, spent afternoons playing, went to the same youth group and on holiday together. After graduating from high school at the age of 18 we both went different directions and after about a year of regularly seeing each other, she just decided one day that I did something terrible to her and stopped talking to me. Almost 10 years later, I still have no idea why we fell out and what I should have done wrong but when we see each other – which is at least once a year – we do not talk at all. Does it still make me sad? No! I mentally ended this whole situation some years ago. This is just the way it is now and that’s okay. 

Why am I telling you all this do you ask? Well……getting in contact with people is something that came quite easy for me, which is great at university and at work but after being, let’s call it disappointed by two –what I had thought were –  best friends, I became more careful opening up completely to people or adding a label like friend-good friend-best friend to certain friendships.

I have a huge group of friends but I tend to divide them into acquaintances (people I like talking to but whom I will never really open up to), friends (people I like a lot and whom I open up to quite a bit) and I have four good friends (these four know a lot about me, are the ones I know I can trust and who I care for with all my heart). 

Angie is a girl I was in school with but rarely talked to. After graduating we became good friends and spent a lot of time together with our group of friends. We got to the point where we could finish each other’s sentences. When she got married to a good friend of mine in 2010 she asked me to be her maid of honor. She got her baby girl in 2012 and after that we had a bit of a though time keeping in contact. I was hurt by some things that did happen but over time we remembered how much fun we always had, we can still gossip like nobody else and finish each other’s sentences and I am sure that over the next months things will approve daily.

Berni and I were in school together and are friends since we were 13 years old and whoever said being friends with boys is impossible – no, it’s not! Yes, I was in love with him for some time during school and I still like him a lot but there’s nothing between us except a dear and deep friendship. I know I can trust him and tell him everything and with his rational way of thinking he is a great counterpart to my emotional reactions. 

I also can add another guy to my list of four good friends but we have a history together. He was my boyfriend when I was 17 and we are still in contact. He is one of my best friend’s and I know I can always count on him. Last year when I wasn’t feeling too well, he was always asking about my health and he is the one guy who is motivates me to keep going whenever I rant about university, work or life in general. 

The last person I have on my list of besties is Kat. Yes, you guys know her! She is co-blogging with April at My Shelf Confessions and we finally met in May this year and just clicked (even more than before). We both had some busy six months and I get the feeling that we didn’t talk as much as I would have liked. I would love for us to live near each other so that we could regularly share a huge bowl of popcorn and some wine while watching a movie or chat. Now we have to rely on Twitter, What’sApp and Skype to talk to each other and there are evenings when I miss her dearly. I never thought that I would meet someone on the internet that I would click with so perfectly but I am so glad that I know her and can call her my internet-BFF. I hope we’ll soon find more time to talk but I know that she’s always there for me and I hope that she knows that she can always count on me.

Wow, this got a little more sappy than I intended but from time to time you need to let the people in your life know how much you love and need them in your life, right?