New word of the year according to New Oxford American Dictionary, meaning “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.” Synonym: defriend…

It happened to me even before I knew the word and not that long ago… It’s how I found out a dear friend stopped being my friend… I explained this in previous entries, so I’m not going to repeat it… But when I saw this in the newspaper I just thought how easy it is to name such a word “word of the year” and how painful it is when it occurs to someone…

But I turned the page… so, I’m moving on, with or without my friends…

In my yearn to please others, I used to be a very caring person, always being there for others, up to the point I let people use me and there wasn’t any room left for me and my desires. I realised it and changed my behaviour and now I’m too self-centered or so they say…

And then I read these words on a friend’s blog: “You live, you learn. But you don’t change who you are. People are people and we know by now that most of the time, they prefer to project their own reality onto others.”

And I realised I’m fed up trying to change myself and/or my behavior to please the world…

For my own good, I’ll try to stop justifying my actions, feelings and thoughts. And secondly,  before I start telling something, I’ll just stop to think whether what I have to tell is of any interest for the other person. If not, I’ll listen instead… If that’s not good enough for others, tough luck, it’s good enough for me…

I am who I am, and I’m not a bad person…

It’s been a bumpy road on Friendship Road lately…

About 8 years ago an old friend sent me a letter telling me I had been too self-centered and too focused on my own issues… I didn’t take into account her own situation. She felt it was a one way relation. That letter meant the end of our friendship… I still regret it… I didn’t get the chance to react or defend myself. We bump into each other once in a while, but apart from “Hi, how are you”, “Fine and you”, “Fine”… There’s no room left for friendship…

I once did something similar. I was in love with a girl and couldn’t handle the rejection. She was my first love… We tried to remain friends after I confessed my feelings to her. She didn’t take it too badly, but I noticed a change and I also noticed I couldn’t handle her choice for someone else. So, in order to protect myself and to heal, I sent her a letter explaining how I felt and why I was asking her to stay away… She did, until we met again, 3 years later. She had moved on, I was healed, we missed our friendship, so we talked, apoligized for past behaviour and moved on… All very mature…

Time passed by, we both switched jobs, moved to a different city… And I noticed we were having difficulties staying in touch. Neither of us likes to talk on the phone for hours, we’re not great e-mailers… There’s a lack of time to see each other regularly… Facebook seemed to help and when something unusual would happen, we would use other means of communication. I missed our not so regular dates, but I didn’t push to have one… Not my style…

And then I noticed I couldn’t see her FB messages anymore, and a friend we have in common told me she actually was mad at me… She wouldn’t tell me why, except she thought I had forgotten her birthday (not true!). So, I tried to contact her to find out what was going on… After two weeks of silence, I got a short mail telling me things had changed… She’s fed up with selfishness and doesn’t appreciate my self-centered attitude… This happened 3 days ago, and I’m baffled, hurt and extremely sad… I took time to react, in order to avoid an over-emotional reaction… But I think it’s a lost cause…

Another friend has had the same reaction a few months ago and yet another one has told me once  I tend to be a reactive friend instead of proactive, which means I rarely take the first step in contacting someone and just wait until someone sends me a mail or calls me or whatever…

All these things added up make me wonder what kind of a friend I am… I’ve always assumed that I’m a good friend who is always there for friends who need me. But the signs tell me otherwise…

Am I a social handicapped person who doesn’t know how to keep relationships alive? Is that why some friends run away? Or why my wife looks for happiness in someone else’s arms?

On the other hand, I still have very old friends, who I’ve known for more that 20 years… OK, they literally live across the ocean, but we still keep in touch and listen to each other. And I have friends living closer by who don’t seem to be planning desertion… And also new friends who seem to appreciate me…

Is it just this thing about friends coming and going, or is it something about me? And I mainly wonder what friendship means… Is it another of those things you should discuss with your friends to make sure there are no misunderstandings… Philosophically? Why make things so complicated? Is this a girl thing? Girls like to complicate things… Or not?

Friendship Road is a weird place. You choose your friends, but they don’t always choose you… And I just want to be a good friend…

I’ve always loved autumn: the colours, the falling leaves, the smell the rain leaves… It’s cooler than summer but warmer than winter… I like the sound of the crunching leaves when having a walk in the park…

I admit I’m less fond of the wind and rain, but hey, you can’t have it all. And I almost forgot: beware of nut trees, they might hurt you now when a nut can’t resist Newton’s gravity laws…

And there’s always a way of escaping the darker and colder days: hot coco, candle light, a nice book or a good movie, a warm blancket wrapped around my legs…

Then my soul gets as colourful as the leaves… Even when everyone is mourning over the lost summer, I just close my ears to all the people who can’t see how beautiful nature is en enjoy it all by myself… Which reminds me of a song, but that’s another story…

Nothing exciting to tell… Let’s see:

We’ve got new kittens, two males, of course my mother had to comment on that… According to her they’ll kill each other once they grow up…

New school year: our little one was beaten from her first day at school… Poor little thing…

Working hard to get my new school year started… Lots to do… It’s not only the students who have to work hard, teachers too…

Not energetised from my one week vacation: planned to much, did everything and didn’t rest… I should know better…

Marriage: well, it is what it is… a marriage with all its ups-and-downs… At least these have stabilised over the last year… The ups are not that high any more (which is a pity) and the downs are not that low anymore (which I’m grateful for)…

So, nothing much to write about, I don’t feel philosophical enough… So, I’ll leave you to it…

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I wonder how people find this blog? And why do they read it?

I obviously gave the url to a few, selected friends, but when I have a look at the map, there are lots of other people reading it… Weird! Can it be that what I write is interesting? If so, why?

Anyway, I was wondering about love, and found myself thinking “Love is not knowing what love is”… I like it… And probably someone else has said exactly the same thing before me, but I don’t care, the idea just popped up in my mind.

Other than that, there’s not much news. New job is great although horribly tiring… For now my marriage is functioning rather good in its weird own sense. And my precious one, my daughter, is loveable as ever…

Life is sweet now, a bit tiring, but nice tiring, so I’ll continue enjoying.

And again: why did you read this post if you don’t know me?

Once again I’ve been awfully slow about updating this blog. I’ve been trying to juggle my last days at my previous work, finding my current job, a three-year old, and a short but very diserved holiday in Turkey.

Emotions were very varied in June:
Sad because I left the greatest colleagues ever
Heartbroken because of the death of great artists, who I will never forget: Yasmine, MJ, Farah Fawcett…
Yasmine really astound me with her choice. But maybe she wasn’t being selfish, she just didn’t want to burden anyone… I hope she’s in peace…

Then Leonard Cohen’s great concert… with great company… If there’s a god, his name is Leonard Cohen

Then our daughter’s operation: went flawless… She was an angel…

Then leaving to Turkey… hot hot hot… great great great… relaxing relaxing relaxing… All Turkish men would marry our daughter or at least adopt her…

And then this new job… I already love it…

Life is sweet now… I’ll just enjoy…

Things that make me smile:

My daughter
Friends when they don’t let me down
My wife when she’s in a good mood
Coca-Cola
Myself, when I pick up the phone for someone else and say the person’s name instead of my own name
The upcoming concert of Leonard Cohen in Antwerp
The upcoming Harry Potter movie

I could also write a post about the things that make me cry, but that would be too long and I don’t want to send negative vibes around me now that I need the positive ones very badly…

I’ll just mention one thing that makes me cry: this Friday, my last day at the office, it kills me to go…