Reflections of my life, part I
Tags: Decision Making, Feelings, Life, Reflections

As a young girl coming to this country, I was very well aware that this was not my home country and the country I was born in (Romania) wasn’t either any longer. I never had a sense of belonging in this country. Neither did my home country fill that void. In order to, what my therapist would later tell me, “survive” I adapted. I was friends at school with different types of kids, not just hanging out with the “popular kids” or just the girls. I tried to blend in everywhere, like a chameleon. That gave me a sense of security and a sense of comfort, but I still felt like an outsider. There were not a lot of kids like me. Not a lot of refugees, Romanians, girls dressed like me, with my music taste, no kids with a complicated life story from the start. However I never wanted to be like anybody else, I always wanted to be myself.

As a young girl I loved books. I must have been around 8 years old when I got this big book full of fairy tales. By the end of the day I had read it all. I used to go to the library A LOT. It was my favorite spot. When I close my eyes I can still see the entire library, where I would walk and run my fingers past the books. Books have always made me feel joyous and I still get excited when I see beautiful libraries or books. If only you could see the amount of books I have bought and collected over the years. So it was only a natural consequence that at about 10 years of age I entered my school’s book reading competition. This used to be part of an annual national competition in the Netherlands. The way it was set up was that you would first compete in your own school and if you won you went on to the regional one.

I won the competition at my elementary school two years in a row. It qualified me for the regional competition. That is where I didn’t win, but I was mentioned in the local newspaper. The judges hadn’t noticed I wasn’t originally Dutch. As I said I lost the competition at the regional level, but depending on what you consider failure, I considered it a win. I was featured in the newspaper and I remember my parents being very proud of me. I was not sure whether it was because the sliver of fame I had gotten or my participation in the competition, but I relished the moment. I felt I was officially like one of the other kids.

As a young girl all I wanted to do was the arts. I sang, danced, formed dancing groups with my best friend, designed clothes, wrote love poems and my own song lyrics. Later on in high school I took part in the yearly high school musical and sang in the pop choir. It was all fun and games until my parents required that I get a conventional job.

I ended up studying communication science at the only university in this country that had a school campus. At that age I really wanted to study in the USA. But unfortunately that was quite unaffordable for my family. The school campus in Enschede was in my eyes the closest thing to an American university campus. I did find it difficult to choose my major, but decided to study something that I always used to see in movies. With communication science I chose something that I thought could get me a job after graduation.

As I progressed and almost graduated with my Master’s degree, I felt it wasn’t something that captured me in my essence. I felt bored and couldn’t imagine a life of writing communication and marketing plans. I felt I was missing a certain depth. What I was studying felt too superficial to me in a sense and not worthy of further investing my time and energy.

How I eventually ended up choosing and switching to a different university, is perhaps a story for another time. But I did switch during the final months of finishing up my Master degree and moved to a different city. I chose to study International Development Studies in Wageningen. Till this day I feel that it is one of the best decisions in my life. I loved it. I was surrounded by students from all over the World, and somehow I no longer felt like an outsider. I found myself in each and every classmate, from Indonesia to Ghana to Lebanon. It wasn’t easy for my parents to understand my decision, but I was very sure it was the right move. The material challenged me and I loved doing the class assignments.

Fast forward to 10 years later, I am now 35 years of age, and looking back at life and reflecting more often than not about everything that I did or felt or wanted. In pursuit of finding my true purpose, understanding my behavior and decisions. My whole life has shaped me up to the person that I am today, I do not fall within the strict confinements of certain “boxes”. I understand everyone who does whatever is necessary to fit the mould, but I am curious when one gets to do what their heart yearns for.