A Stronger Me

Growing up, I never had much confidence as an individual. My sister and I did everything together_ high school, sports camps, even college! Any anxieties I had about socializing were always comforted with the relieving fact that my sister would be by my side. During that time in my life I could not picture going a day without talking to my sister. I went to her with everything, hardly made any decisions on my own, and I was content with living my life that way.

My independence, self-esteem, and leadership qualities really began to blossom when I got the opportunity to work as a summer camp counselor. I realized how much I had to offer on my own. I was still quiet, shy, and reserved that first summer I worked there, but it forced me to branch out.

Through branching out, I realized what a complex person I was. I took psychological quizzes and personality tests trying to figure out where to go next in life and they all came out with mixed results. I struggled to find myself because of this. How can a person be a leader and a follower? A good listener and a good talker? In order to be considered ‘normal’, a person is supposed to fall on either side, right? Well, I teeter in the middle of the spectrum.

                                    
    Summer 2012 working as a camp counselor with this awesome group of people!

                                      

Pieter and I saying good-bye after working together that summer. 

(He had no idea how much I liked him then) ;)

During our time of dating, my now husband quickly discovered that I am somehow both an extrovert and an introvert. I benefit from interaction with people and crave it when I am on my own for too long, but it drains me and I need that ‘just me’ time just as much. It is difficult to make friends and know where your place in society is when you have so many different sides to yourself.

The past two weeks, as my departure to the Netherlands creeps up quickly, I have been conversing with Pieter about how all of this has made me a stronger person. I feel like I was never cut out to be in a situation like this, but I have to choose to believe that it is preparing me for something in our future. When I talk to Pieter about having to do something I really do not want to do without him, I end in saying “but I know it is making me stronger”. From the moment the security guards told me my husband would not be joining me in the States, to the moment I made the decision to return home to work for five months without my husband, to walking through baggage check in tears at the Amsterdam airport all by myself, and every life event I have weathered in between_ this has made me stronger. I have recognized my potential, seen qualities in myself I never knew existed, and held onto hope tighter than I thought I would ever have to.

                                   

The Planner

In two days I will only have seven more weeks left in America. Pieter and I have made the decision for us to live in the Netherlands for the time he is unable to be in America. While we are still in the process of getting my visa paperwork done, finding an affordable apartment, and planning the nearby future, we are both excited to know we are going somewhere.

I have always been a planner and I like to feel in control of my life. If someone were to go through all the things in my room, they would find notebooks of plans and ideas of how I thought I could get from one point to another. In high school I made a plan of where I’d go to college, what summer job I would get, and how I might be able to get a boyfriend. In college I made countless plans of how I would pass my classes, make enough money to pay for tuition, and how many credits I would need to earn for my degree. When Pieter and I were dating I made all sorts of plans for nights out together, for our future (10, 20, even 30 years), I even typed up a three page plan just for our engagement and all the options we had. I always feel better about life when I have a plan. (Just for the record, none of these plans have ever gone according to plan, but I keep trying.)

Out of the hundreds of things that has bothered me about this time away from my husband, the uncertainty in not knowing where I want to go in the years ahead has been one of the biggest challenges. Determined to have a plan, I spend a lot of evenings that I have off work searching for apartments and making budget plans for the months of August to February.

I guess this tentative ‘plan’ makes it obvious that our goal is to have Pieter and I back in America by next February, but there is no guarantee. We continue to go through each day not really thinking about the process and trying not to let the past and present get in the way of making the best of our future together.