New beginning

Today is the first day of the new semester and it feels weird to be back in my university.
I have been lethargic all day yesterday, crying all night and was in a really bad mood this morning. I am a routine kind of girl. I like routine, I thrive on routine and it is always hard for me to adapt to change; however little it is.
I stayed in my pyjamas all day yesterday thinking about everything that happened in the last 2 months. It feels like an eternity. All the changes inside and outside, the travelling, celebrating Christmas, New Year`s, fighting with my body and mind, the creative wave I have been riding on, spending all this wonderful time with my husband, having soooo many ups and downs in my personal development; how can all of that fit into such a short amount of time?
And yet at the same time, I wanted to do so much more. I had planned on working and experimenting with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign etc., wanted to create a new wordpress website or even design my own website, clean my computer and organize my pictures. Oh well, I am human and can`t do it all.

Even though this semester just began, it migh be a short one for me. More about that in a later post.  

Just what I needed to be reminded of today.

Originally, I was going to start to write about our first few days in Yaoundé (which I know a lot of you want to hear about), but – as I have said this morning – my thoughts are still so scattered that I am having a writer’s block. There is so much to tell, but I do not know where to start. I really should have written everything down while we were in Cameroon, but I just did not have the time.

Anyways, I am repeating myself.

Valerie and I spent the morning together, enjoying some coffee/ hot chocolate, talking about everything and nothing, just having a good time before running some errands in the bitter cold. I don’t know why we even left the house. It is freeeeeezing here in Germany. I really wish I could go back to Cameroon. *sigh*

During her time in Cameroon Valerie started to read the bible every morning with Joseph (her boyfriend) and she decided to continue her daily devotionals here in Germany too. So, we went to a Christian bookstore to buy a bible and two books of Daily Bible Verses.

While she was choosing a bible, I was looking around the store and I noticed a beautiful postcard with 2 Timothy 1:7 written on it:

“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

I had chosen this scripture as my confirmation reading and it was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment as all of my fears and anxieties came back when we arrived in Europe again.

Needless to say, I bought the card and have read this verse over and over again today (although I have known it by heart since I was 13 years old) and it helped me get through the day, it kept me thinking and gave me strength. I love this verse and always have and I cannot believe that I needed to see this and read this postcard before remembering it.

“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

Isn’t this passage just beautiful, comforting and so full of hope?!

Obligatory 1/11/11 Post

Since I am in a hurry and kind of uninspired (seriously, who stole all the inspiration I had last week), I will post a few wishes that I wrote up earlier this year in light of admitting to being "not OK".

My Wishes for Myself

I want to get healthy for the first time in my life.
I want to be able to accept myself for who I am.
I want to reach and stay at a healthy weight.
I want to get rid off my eating attacks.
I want to come to terms with who I am.
I want to be able to enjoy food.
I want to be able to NOT THINK about what I am eating all day long.
I just want to be normal for one single day in my life.

Physical and mental health is what I am striving for.

I hope to write a few more blog posts before leaving for Africa in 2 days (canNOT wait!!!), but I cannot promise anything.

Have a Happy 1/11/11, my friends!

The sad episodes of 2010.

While this year was filled with SO MANY HAPPY, BLISSFUL moments and exciting adventures, we also had to deal with 2 very unexpected and particularly painful losses.

On August 1st, my grandmother passed away. She was … years old and fell asleep in her bed. She was not in pain; she did not die in a foreign hospital bed, but in the house that had been her home for decades.

Not having her around on Christmas this year was brutal, especially for my father. But I miss her terribly and there are so many things I regret NOT having talked to her about. She died 6 days after I got married and never even met my husband.

I have never lost someone that close to me and it was the hardest thing I ever had to go through. I don‘t know how I‘ve made it through the funeral. All I remember is wanting to spare my dad all his pain. I would have done anything not to see him suffer so very much.

I remember how happy she was when she heard that I had decided to come back from the WILD WILD WEST (LOL). She always felt uneasy about the thought of her granddaughter living so far away. [I often wonder what she‘d say about my sister being in Africa now… She‘d be „not amused“]

I remember our very last phone call and how much fun we had, we joked around about the stock market (for whatever reason…), my dad and so much more. It is a stupid thing to say, but it was a GOOD last phone call.

Up until the very last moment of her life, she was witty, had my kind of humor and interested in everything, she knew about sports, politics, and the daily happenings in the world. I loved the discussions I had with her and I could always learn something for life.

I go and visit her grave from time to time and just talk to hear for a few hours. It feels good to have a place to visit, but I will always regret not having seen her more often in the last year.

Rest in peace, Mimama. I love you and I will ALWAYS miss you.

Then, later this month, while Andreas and I were on vacation in the Dominican Republic, we got a phone call telling us that my grandfather‘s older brother had suddenly passed away at the age of 91.

I am not sure how much I should share about him on this blog. So, all I will say is that he was a great, loving, kind, intelligent man, mentally and physically fit, even at his great age.
He too, will be deeply missed.

Losing Mimama and Uncle Hans showed me again that you should and are not allowed to ever take anything or anyone for granted. Everything can be over in the blink of an eye.