Well I went to the abbey of Averbode yesterday to my appointment with the priest who is going to help me get back into the Catholic Church. 

I didn't really know what to expect when I went there.  The weather behaved itself so I could easily cycle there - I just told my parents that I needed some fresh air after having been ill and didn't tell them the real reason for going there.  They are not religious at all, and I didn't want to cause any more polemics than I already did.  But still I was kind of nervous...

When I arrived there I found the shop closed (too bad), so I went straight to the double doors of the Pastorie and pulled the bell (it was an ancient pulling-bell and I had to pull twice before it sounded .

To my amazement, a lady opened the door.  I understood she worked there as a secretary or receptionist, because when I told her the purpose of my visit she went to fetch Father D. whom I had an appointment with.  She brought me to a little waiting room, but the father arrived very quickly.  I explained him my biggest problem : the fact that I was officially muslim and that I wanted to be an official Catholic again  - with the complicating fact that I had already been baptized.  He didn't have an answer immediately to that, so he went to phone some people at the archdiocese ! Waw, all this trouble over little me, quite amazing.  When he came back he said he would have more information on Monday evening, because the people who could grant him permission to take me back in the Church were not there anymore (it was Friday 4 pm then).

So, on Monday evening I promised to give the father a call.

Then I asked how the Church considered me, with a view to my past marriage and divorce outside the church while my husband had passed away.  He said that in those conditions I am an unmarried woman for the Church because my wedding never has been valid.  That was what I thought too, but it was nice to have it confirmed by someone who knew it better !

I explained the priest that I wanted to become a therapist and had stopped working for that.  He found it an excellent choice to help people, and said that psychological problems were on the increase the last twenty years.  Confirmation again that what I want to do is the right thing, that's nice to hear.  I have too often heard (or implicitly heard) that the job I did before that was completely useless - and it is.  Nobody misses a secretary, they can easily be replaced.  But I would like to mean more than that to people.

Well the last couple of days sure have been unpleasant.  Not only have I still struggled with illness myself, but my father also got ill.  The same as me, he thought... but when the doctor came to visit him it was obvious that there was something wrong with his lungs too.  This is not the first time, so the doc comes back every day now to give him injections, and he also has to use the aerosol-machine (which he doesn't do often enough...). 

My father is a very unpleasant man when he's sick, because he acts like it's the whole wide world's fault (and especially my mother's and mine), and is usually just sitting in his sofa with his eyes closed and a face that resembles more like a thundercloud.  Yesterday he got into a fight with my mother because there was a misunderstanding with the injections the doctor had to give him (my dad thought he was missing a prescription, which wasn't true, but he only found that out when he especially phoned the doc this morning !!).  Needless to say the general mood around here is very tensed.

I try to not care too much about all that and usually spend my time in my room.  It would be all too easy to be dragged into the fight either by my mother (most likely) or by my dad himself.  It wouldn't be the first time they implicitly ask me to choose sides, and since I noticed that, I deliberately try to avoid it.  I'm not the judge around here !  But the general tensions around the house caused me to lack sleep - last night I only slept three hours !

I slowly started writing again, but I have difficulties to concentrate on one particular story.  The one I'd like to finish most is Gabriel and Elisabeth (I haven't found a title for this series yet), but I'm also working at my dream fiction about Guy - my everlasting lost love that I haven't seen in more than thirteen years .  Thoughts and ideas enough, but I should try to learn to be more more patient.  I have all these ideas swirling in my head.  Ragnarok, my fantasy novel, is also one of those I started working on again.  At the moment I'm creating the "actors and actresses" of the story and am doing a lot of drawing, mostly faces.  Since I'm not good enough at inventing faces all on my own, I take them from magazines - where the difficulty is that most faces you see in magazines are young and beautiful and mostly female.  I also need elderly women, elderly men and some ugly people .  Fortunately there's still the Knack and the Humo magazine for those !

The weather has been very good for the last couple of days and so we have a new proliferation of all kinds of unwanted insects.  Especially ticks !! Argh, I hate ticks !  They claw themselves into the cats and are sometimes numerous, yesterday Mica had two and Conaire and Cormac one each.  Grimnir doesn't go outside much right now (I think he's so easily tired, poor thing), so he didn't have ticks yet.  But for the other cats, always sniffing around and being adventurous in trees and fields, they are a real plague.  The ticks are early this year : in February there were already some.  Too bad the winter wasn't cold enough to eradicate them - but I heard a tick can resist up to minus 16 degrees C, so that's a vain hope !

Today I'm scheduled to see the priest in Averbode.  I haven't told my parents anything - they don't have to know that religion is taking a place in my life.  The only thing I would get out of it are more comments, so I'd rather keep it to myself.  I am a little nervous though, and have no idea at all about how this conversation will go.  I don't even know what to say !  I guess once I get there it will all fall into place, but up till now I'm still wondering how to begin that conversation !

Been sick for a couple of days, so I haven't logged in on the pc until today.  Usually when I'm sick, I'm reading or sleeping, and that was the case right now too.

I began to get very ill on Friday the 26th, that was the day I had to go to Antwerp to get my social security stamp.  It started with diarrhea in the morning, but I thought with a few Imodium's it was going to be allright.... well I was wrong !  The trip from here to Antwerp lasts a bit less than an hour and the next train back is about twenty minutes after arrival.  Because I was so ill in the train already, I hurried and succeeded in taking that very next train.  Basically I got my stamp, returned to the station and jumped on that train.  Two hours later I was in Diest again, my mother picked me up at the station and immediately called the doctor.

I have rarely been so miserable as that day and the two following days.  The doctor gave me an injection with antibiotics - I had a cold fever (35 degrees C instead of 36,5), I was shivering all over and even though I was stone cold, I was sweating.  Diagnosis : colitis.  Everyone else this period has some sort of influenza that looks like colitis but I, again, have the "real stuff". 

The doc gave me all sorts of medications but they didn't act very quickly, so he came back yesterday and prescribed me a second box of antibiotics.  I hope I'm not going to get any symptoms of candida after that - it happened often enough before !  Anyway I also cought a cold - probably at the station - so it's all too well that I get more antibiotics right now. 

The cats were just wonderful.  They already are so wonderful all the time, but when I'm ill they are especially affectionate.  Or is this just a thought ?  Anyway even Grimnir came to sleep on my bed, just as did the three others, for some days now.  Mica actually succeeds in sleeping more than two hours in a row at night !  And there is always Conaire, who is more like a dog than as a cat.  He follows me around everywhere I go, and when I'm in my room, which is often, he is almost always there with me.  I like it to have a presence with me like this.  My parents take very good care of me of course, but the soothing constant presence of a pet still is different.

My mother was wonderful too.  When I'm sick she's always so caring.  She often asked if I needed anything - I almost never said yes - and installed the intercom in her room should I need anything at night.  She brought water and medication to my room and even asked if I preferred that she didn't go to the dancing club she belongs to.  I could manage, so I said that I didn't mind of course.  Sometimes when I'm sick I think that I'm lucky to have my parents.  What will happen to me when they are gone ?  Then I'll be all alone, nobody will be there to take care of me.  Unless I find someone with a big family and the need for a stable relationship, of course, but even then it's still going to be different.  That thought made me really sad.

I planned to start studying in my big psychology book that Willy bought me a couple of years ago for my birthday, but up till now I haven't done it yet.  No energy, and besides I'm reading one of the Outlander-novels by Diana Gabaldon and that is much more fun than psychological theories ! 

What I did do is making a miniature 15-decades rosary in the form of a necklace in Lapis Lazuli and rock crystal.  Very nice, and not flashy at all.  I can easily wear it, with or without the crucifix.  I like to design that kind of jewels, I should make a few pairs of earrings too.  I still have some stones of each kind left, so I can easily make a few pairs. 

I'm feeling guilty because I didn't go horseriding for so long.  On the other hand with the bad weather we had up till about two weeks ago, I couldn't do otherwise.  But when I'm better and the weather is still holding up, I should go back and ride Aramis.  Poor horse, nobody takes care of him now.  And now for the coming week I think they predict dry weather (now it's sunny, 18 degrees C and very nice).  So I really don't have any excuse, besides the fact that I'm so damn lazy . 

I really should get a hold of myself ! 

Been sick for a couple of days, so I haven't logged in on the pc until today.  Usually when I'm sick, I'm reading or sleeping, and that was the case right now too.

I began to get very ill on Friday the 26th, that was the day I had to go to Antwerp to get my social security stamp.  It started with diarrhea in the morning, but I thought with a few Imodium's it was going to be allright.... well I was wrong !  The trip from here to Antwerp lasts a bit less than an hour and the next train back is about twenty minutes after arrival.  Because I was so ill in the train already, I hurried and succeeded in taking that very next train.  Basically I got my stamp, returned to the station and jumped on that train.  Two hours later I was in Diest again, my mother picked me up at the station and immediately called the doctor.

I have rarely been so miserable as that day and the two following days.  The doctor gave me an injection with antibiotics - I had a cold fever (35 degrees C instead of 36,5), I was shivering all over and even though I was stone cold, I was sweating.  Diagnosis : colitis.  Everyone else this period has some sort of influenza that looks like colitis but I, again, have the "real stuff". 

The doc gave me all sorts of medications but they didn't act very quickly, so he came back yesterday and prescribed me a second box of antibiotics.  I hope I'm not going to get any symptoms of candida after that - it happened often enough before !  Anyway I also cought a cold - probably at the station - so it's all too well that I get more antibiotics right now. 

The cats were just wonderful.  They already are so wonderful all the time, but when I'm ill they are especially affectionate.  Or is this just a thought ?  Anyway even Grimnir came to sleep on my bed, just as did the three others, for some days now.  Mica actually succeeds in sleeping more than two hours in a row at night !  And there is always Conaire, who is more like a dog than as a cat.  He follows me around everywhere I go, and when I'm in my room, which is often, he is almost always there with me.  I like it to have a presence with me like this.  My parents take very good care of me of course, but the soothing constant presence of a pet still is different.

My mother was wonderful too.  When I'm sick she's always so caring.  She often asked if I needed anything - I almost never said yes - and installed the intercom in her room should I need anything at night.  She brought water and medication to my room and even asked if I preferred that she didn't go to the dancing club she belongs to.  I could manage, so I said that I didn't mind of course.  Sometimes when I'm sick I think that I'm lucky to have my parents.  What will happen to me when they are gone ?  Then I'll be all alone, nobody will be there to take care of me.  Unless I find someone with a big family and the need for a stable relationship, of course, but even then it's still going to be different.  That thought made me really sad.

I planned to start studying in my big psychology book that Willy bought me a couple of years ago for my birthday, but up till now I haven't done it yet.  No energy, and besides I'm reading one of the Outlander-novels by Diana Gabaldon and that is much more fun than psychological theories ! 

What I did do is making a miniature 15-decades rosary in the form of a necklace in Lapis Lazuli and rock crystal.  Very nice, and not flashy at all.  I can easily wear it, with or without the crucifix.  I like to design that kind of jewels, I should make a few pairs of earrings too.  I still have some stones of each kind left, so I can easily make a few pairs. 

I'm feeling guilty because I didn't go horseriding for so long.  On the other hand with the bad weather we had up till about two weeks ago, I couldn't do otherwise.  But when I'm better and the weather is still holding up, I should go back and ride Aramis.  Poor horse, nobody takes care of him now.  And now for the coming week I think they predict dry weather (now it's sunny, 18 degrees C and very nice).  So I really don't have any excuse, besides the fact that I'm so damn lazy . 

I really should get a hold of myself ! 

Well the most important event of today is that I wrote to the convent in Averbode to make an appointment with a priest.  I've been wanting to see a priest for some time now, regarding my "situation" (or non-situation) in the Catholic Church, but I never dared to take the step.  I finally did it, sent a little e-mail with in short my question and my desire to confess.

I read on their website that a few of the friars there are appointed especially for conversions and such, so I guess my e-mail will be transferred to one of those fathers.  As from there I don't know how it will go. 

Of course I have been baptized as a Catholic and I have done my Holy Communion and Confirmation... but everything changed when I married my husband and became muslim.  I also had been studying buddhism but never became a buddhist, because I believe in the existence of God above men, and buddhists don't.  But there are very interesting elements in their philosophy too, just like in Islam... it was difficult to make a choice and I have been struggling with this choice for years.  But finally I felt - and wholeheartedly decided - that I felt most at home in the Catholic Church, even if there are conservative teachings that I don't agree with.

I hope I will soon receive an answer to my question !

Amazingly enough I found a guy living in the village next to mine on an international dating site !  That has never happened to me before since I lived in this small town !  And another guy I'm chatting with is from Leuven, the city where I'm going to study.  He seems to be someone who can hold a conversation, which is always a good point.  I have to be kept interested intellectually !

Today I got up at 8.30 (which is the usual hour I get up now that it's light at 7 am) and I was just thinking about how different getting up has become since I don't work anymore.  I remembered all the stress of getting up at 6.30, getting ready for my work, ironing my clothes for that day, feeding the cats, taking a shower, put on my make-up... well all the routine things that I performed like on automatic pilot in those days.

I compared : now I like to get up because it's a new day for learning, but back then I used to hate getting up because I just hated my job, I hated the daily train rides too.  I never realized how bad it was until after I stopped working.  I have never felt so relieved in my whole life !

Also since I am on anti-anxiety medication I don't spend half of my bedtime worrying about a thousand and one things - especially money issues.  I just don't care anymore (that's not so good either but it's still better than being constantly anxious).  Even now that I have these loan problems I still don't care.  I try to think about it as less as possible - which is now working.  A few months ago it didn't : the more I said to myself "don't think about it"; the more I actually thought about it.  I guess there is time for worrying when something really ís going on.

This morning I went shopping with my mother.  We went to the little store in town, then to the pharmacist (I also needed injection needles for my diabetic cat), then to the animal supplies store to get food.  I took the usual Maine Coon food which is really becoming expensive since all those cats eat so much.  And my mother urged me to try another kind of cat food which was cheaper.  I have mixed the two together and they seem to like it.  Let's hope it stays that way !  My mother said she found it too expensive to feed four cats with the expensive Maine Coon food.  I don't understand her sometimes.  She buys expensive coats but will spend as little as possible on food (be it for animals or for us).  She just has funny standards I guess.

And after that we went to the superstore where I got a few office supplies too.  I offered to pay them, but my mother said she was going to pay all of the stuff we bought there.  That wasn't very expensive but anyway, I sometimes think her priorities are mixed up when it comes to money .

Well I forgot to write about what happened on my way from the therapist back home.

I wanted to go straight back to the station, so that I wouldn't spend any money... but then my heel broke off !  There was this Spanish guy at the tram stop who wanted to "help" me - or more rather make a move at me, ridiculously trying to put the heel back (which didn't work of course).  Luckily he didn't insist.

But obviously I couldn't continue walking on only one heel - so I took the tramway to the center of town and saw nice shoes in a very small (but expensive) shop.  I tried them on and they fitted, so I told myself "what the hell!" and bought them... for 99 EUR which is a lot of money (but then again, I never ever buy cheap shoes !).

It is incredible how nice shoes can give me a feeling of being much more elegant. I don't have that with all shoes, but these surely did make me feel good.  And since for once I was satisfied with my hair, I felt quite ok !

And since I was spending money anyway - when I came near the station at the gold shops there was a pendant with a little angel on it, especially promoted at 65 EUR.  Not expensive at all, so I bought that too.  I've been looking for a little angel for such a long time.  I already have a pendent that looks a bit like it, but this new angel really does have a wing !  Very nice.  I bought it, because I knew I would regret it if I didn't.

So far for the spending-money for the rest of the week !  I'm not going anywhere anymore, except to my place on Friday to get my social security stamp.

Well I forgot to write about what happened on my way from the therapist back home.

I wanted to go straight back to the station, so that I wouldn't spend any money... but then my heel broke off !  There was this Spanish guy at the tram stop who wanted to "help" me - or more rather make a move at me, ridiculously trying to put the heel back (which didn't work of course).  Luckily he didn't insist.

But obviously I couldn't continue walking on only one heel - so I took the tramway to the center of town and saw nice shoes in a very small (but expensive) shop.  I tried them on and they fitted, so I told myself "what the hell!" and bought them... for 99 EUR which is a lot of money (but then again, I never ever buy cheap shoes !).

It is incredible how nice shoes can give me a feeling of being much more elegant. I don't have that with all shoes, but these surely did make me feel good.  And since for once I was satisfied with my hair, I felt quite ok !

And since I was spending money anyway - when I came near the station at the gold shops there was a pendant with a little angel on it, especially promoted at 65 EUR.  Not expensive at all, so I bought that too.  I've been looking for a little angel for such a long time.  I already have a pendent that looks a bit like it, but this new angel really does have a wing !  Very nice.  I bought it, because I knew I would regret it if I didn't.

So far for the spending-money for the rest of the week !  I'm not going anywhere anymore, except to my place on Friday to get my social security stamp.

Well as almost every Monday I went to my therapist today.  It's been almost a year now that I'm going to this lady, I started with sessions twice a week, and now I'm on once a week.  She helped me a lot, by letting me talk, and giving advice sometimes.  Most of all she answers my questions.  And she said I had a bright mind and that I would be a great therapist myself, once I sort out this major depressive disorder that I'm struggling with since ten or more years.  And deep down inside, I knew she was right.

I have already told her a lot about my family and my relationships, probably even most about my family.  The way I was raised, what I have been through as a child and how I felt in those early years really has a major impact on my life as it is now... and it took my parents (especially my mother) a long time to realize that.  And the double edge here is that I can't even explain it to them, because I never learned to discuss feelings at all; it was just an emotional wasteland here.  It still is; emotions are completely out of the picture.  And since I am an emotionally very deep-feeling human being, of course I am now very confused as an adult.  My role-models (or at least my supposed role-models) are not behaving at all like I want to behave myself !  And this has been going on for 32 years !  No wonder I don't only have issues with my past relationships, but with my parents also.

It's hard to say that your parents have not raised you well.  Even if you feel it, it's still hard to say in those words.  I did it today, and it was very difficult.  I almost immediately apologized to myself for saying it.  And yet I just meant to say that they have made me into the confused person that I am now, so I wouldn't call that much of a success in child-raising.  On the other hand, they did and still do everything they can for me in material, physical point of view - but just not psychologically and emotionally.  That's just the way they are, I'm going to have to learn to cope with that.

I'm already glad that I'm learning to set boundaries towards my mother.  She is the one I have the most difficulties with - because she talks all the time but never gets straight to the point, or because there are so many things that I would want to say but I just can't, out of fear of rejection.  That fear of rejection is very strong in me, towards my parents and towards men in my life. Even towards girl-friends.  I should stand up for myself more than I do now (I used to be good at it, and at work I was still good at it, but as I explained to the therapist, I always kept my work-life and private life very very separated).  But now that I realise it, my last boss (Shibasaki) could walk over me too - the former couldn't (Van der Spiegel), because I was not so deep in the depression at that time.  I really became depressed when working for Shibasaki, in the beginning of my second year as his secretary and all this stuff with Alicia happened.  That was really the point of breakdown, and my therapist noticed it.  I stopped working in April or May - I think it was April, I stayed home on her orders and after my sick leave I didn't want to go back.  My therapist said that if I had continued to work for one more month, I would have been ready for the mental hospital.  So I was just in time to seek help !

I have a lot of self-esteem issues.  Contrary to what my mother believes, my self-esteem is way too low, and not too high as she thought before.  I explained her once that persons with too low self-esteem just don't go and talk and mix with other people because they are afraid. Fear of rejection again, fear of being ridiculed, of being thought of as "not interesting"... These are issues she never suspected in me, she thought I didn't want to talk to people because I thought they were lower than me... while in fact it is exactly the other way around !  Luckily a talk show on TV about this kind of problem helped me to explain it to her.

But there is still a lot of work to do !

Damned I don't know anything about html !! And if I don't learn how to concentrate, it sure will not improve !  I try to set this homepage up, but it just doesn't work out.  I know in my head how it should look, but I'm just too impatient.  I'm used to Word : where everything you do has an immediate result.  html doesn't work like this... it's a programming tool for much more patient people than me !

Well just when I was writing that online dating services don't work, I notice that I have an email from a guy from the Philippines who seem to like me.  Well let's see how that works out.  It's safe at the moment (I don't want to go out anyway) and the Philippines are far away.  It is unlikely that the guy shows up at my door in a couple of days... and meanwhile if he keeps on mailing we can get to know each other.  At least then I'll have a pen friend, which is more than nothing at all.

But in general I think matchmaking sites are one big fraud.  Many sites are not free, I know of only two or three completely free sites where members can directly email each other.  Other sites like FriendFinder are paying, and when you don't pay you can't do anything, not even reading members profiles.  Outrageous.  Besides I think that some people (yeah, like me) are so desperate that they subscribe in different sites, and so they lose a lot of money, to end up with nothing in the end.  I say nothing because those dating sites are not much more than a meat market : no picture, no message, and no looking good, no message either.  Apparently many people are waiting for the one and only miss or mister perfect to appear - I admit that I don't write to people that I don't like physically.  There must be some attraction.  But hey, my last boyfriend Willy was absolutely not a Don Juan, but we mailed and chatted for three months before actually meeting, and that was a much better solution than immediately sending pictures.

Maybe if he had sent one, I would not have reacted positively.  Not that he was ugly, but he wasn't exactly Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. 

Strange how I think about him today.  Maybe it's because of that dream.  I'm still not over it.  In fact I rarely dreamed about Willy at all, that makes it even stranger.    But what interests me most is who that other guy was .