I can really make cheerful titles, can’t I?

Those on my facebook know that today I went to the movies on my own, a Dutch(not to be confused with Danish ;)) film came out that I really wanted to see. When no one wanted to come with, I went on my own. The movie was called ‘Achtste groepers huilen niet’ and it was originally a children’s book written by the amazing Jacques Vriens (in English it translates to ‘Cool kids don’t cry’).

Although I do not want to give too many spoilers for those people who still want to see it and haven’t read the book, I do want to tell a little bit about it and the writer who wrote it. Jacques Vriens is a really great writer of children’s books. There are always very cheerful drawings in his books and even though he often teaches quite heavy stuff in his stories, the stories themselves aren’t heavy. He is one of the most read Dutch writers and, even when I had long outgrown the age when children normally read his stories, I love reading his stories.

The novel on which the movie was based is about this girl Akkie and she is in group 8, the final year of primary school. She is a really active kid, very cheerful, the life of the class and absolutely loves soccer. Akkie gets leukaemia. It rocks her world. The doctor uses an amazingly child friendly way to explain to her what’s going on. The story is then about how her disease progresses and how her various classmates and friends deal with it. She goes completely bald(which is fairly normal with this disease) and stays that way the rest of the movie (in the novel I think she actually started getting back in the end, at least someone did). Being in the last year of primary school means that there are a number of events on the program that she still wants to participate in, such as the cito test (standard Dutch test for the last year of primary school to see which level of education a child can master in secondary school. Sort of an early IQ-test), school camp, the school musical (although this doesn’t come up in the movie) and the soccer tournament. So Akkie has to battle the disease and restrain herself so that she is allowed and able to participate in these. The first one is school camp. Everything seems fine, but after she pushed herself too far on the first day(or the first real day) she has to rest the next morning and is late in joining the others. When she finally does she keels over after a few seconds. After that she doesn’t leave the hospital anymore.

Having read the book I knew that she was going to die. I also knew that she was going to find love before she does. I knew what was coming and somehow it got me harder. I was really glad to be on my own actually, because it meant that I didn’t have to restrain myself because of my company. It also meant that I had to leave the cinema really fast after the movie before I broke down right then and there. It was done really beautifully, the dieing scene as well. In the book it was written that she has a dream that you have with her and in the movie the camera sort of became the astral body of Akkie that floated out and went outside. It was just really beautiful.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen a movie about a child battling leukaemia, and dieing from it, ‘My sister’s keeper’ also has that. It’s not even my first time encountering someone dieing from a cancer-type disease. My only grandfather (well, the only one I knew because the other one was already dead when I was born) died in group/year 5 of primary school(you start in year 1 at age 5 or 6). I always forget of which type he exactly died, it was either lung, kidney or perhaps liver. Somewhere along those lines. It’s a really long time ago and I can’t even remember that much from that whole school year.

He was the only grandfather I had. Only the year before I had to go to a different primary school every week for communion lessons. I’m brought up Catholic so when I arrived at that certain age I had to do my communion and my public primary school didn’t give the lessons necessary with it. So, every week my grandfather would come and pick me up and would bring me to the other school where I, and my niece of the same age, received the necessary lessons and practise. I can still remember one time when we couldn’t find the class. The classroom was completely empty. We didn’t hear anything, there wasn’t a note. So we walked to the church, that was opposite the school and where the communion would be held, but they weren’t there either. After much walking between the two places (and getting a bit panicked) the class finally emerged. They had been doing some gym exercises upstairs. That year was basically my year with grandpa. He made me feel like it was a good, positive thing to be a little girl. Like the little princess every (grand)daughter wants to be.

The next year he got ill. Had to go to the hospital. When it became clear that he wasn’t getting better anymore they let him go home (that information didn’t get into my head until some years after, mind you), so that he could die at home. A nurse would come by a few times a week to take care of his medicines and stuff. I gave him a little stuffed bunny, for courage and comfort. Every time I came by, and the nurse had taken the bunny of his bed, I would pick it up and place it right back. Because grandpa needed that bunny to get better. I didn’t get to see him dead. My brother M was asked to read something at the funeral I believe, but he didn’t want to do it(or he couldn’t) and I volunteered to do it. I think. I don’t remember precisely. It hadn’t sunken in yet. I was happy and cheery, didn’t see the seriousness of the adults for anything more than just normal seriousness. My family is serious by nature so it wasn’t all that odd.

Then the funeral day came. I wore my favourite dress of that time, it was really a Christmas dress it being red and green but I loved it and it was proper and looked nice enough for the occasion. All through the ceremony my grandmother and mother cried, I think my two nieces, who were younger, did too. I didn’t. It was just church. Grandpa had died, but the meaning of it hadn’t come in yet. At the end of the service the family could leave, and say goodbye for the last time, first. I just followed my grandmother and did what she did. She sought comfort and support from the casket. It was one of the last times I saw her so broken. So I touched the casket as well. Then the reception came and everyone was sitting around the table, drinking something and eating cake I guess. I don’t know what I was drinking. Some sort of soda I presume. Then it hit me. Grandpa wasn’t going to join us anymore. He was, well, dead. That’s when I started crying.

I’ve missed my grandfather ever since.

Now I have to find some sort of clever linking device to the third topic I wanted to talk about, but unfortunately I can’t think of any nice ones that aren’t go to be abrupt. So this will have to do.

There are probably going to be people who will think that my next bit is going to be a bit dramatic (to say the least), and maybe it is. Sometimes, I just like to be dramatic, take it a bit over the top. It can help me get things in perspective, weirdly enough. By making it bigger than it is, you can also enlarge the problem areas and see what’s bothering you. And then sometimes, of course, it is just fun to be a bit dramatic and make people sigh.

Anyways. Studying isn’t always fun and cheerful and easy for everyone. It sort of has been for me. But it also wasn’t. I used to be a very big Hermione Granger and get all huffy on people who didn’t pay attention in class or acted in a way I found really stupid. I learned that it was important to get a good job to pay for bills and so you can get a good house. For a good job, you need to do well in your studies. One brother appeared to have been a failure in that area, the other was raised to the post of half-god and the third… well, let’s just say that he is who he is and leave it at that. Being who I am, it wasn’t hard to figure out that I have a good set of brains. The problem with that was that people, parents usually, more or less expected you to use them well, get good grades and get to a good level in secondary school. I had enough problems during my primary school years that I didn’t want that pressure, I still don’t. So in the final year I did the cito test, scored reasonably well and my teacher asked me which level I wanted to do. I chose the lowest of the three and although I could do the middle one as well he gave me the advice I wanted.

Life didn’t get any easier in secondary school. It actually got worse. But at least I had my studies I could focus on, and my readings. That’s exactly what I did. After secondary school I went to the appropriate follow up to study for teacher’s assistant. I failed my internship. That was my first failure. I did all sorts of testing to see what I could do next. It came out that basically everything I liked was college or higher(we have college and university and there is a difference in degree and difficulty). So I had to go back to secondary school to get the appropriate diploma.

Let’s just keep it to that life still wasn’t getting any easier. In a way perhaps it did, because I could avoid them more easily and find more places where I could be alone. I didn’t have to do any re-sits and passed in one go. I applied for ‘Writing for Performance’ in Utrecht but I didn’t pass the selection weekend. Instead I went to Maastricht to study translating. I absolutely failed in the French part of my studies. So I had to quit after the first half of the year. I applied to ‘Writing for Performance’ again, and again didn’t get through the selection weekend. It hit me harder the second time around. But I picked myself up and went to Tilburg to study at the English teacher training college. I completely passed the first year, and got my Propedeuse, in one year (I had to do three re-sits though). The second year was moving along nicely enough until my second internship didn’t go so well. I talked with my internship supervisors and in the end decided that this wasn’t the best place for me. But with my Propedeuse I could get into university. I did some more testing and then decided to finally study English at Utrecht University.

For some people studying, even when you have to do re-sits or take a course again, feels like a breeze. It’s the best years of their lives. I’m certainly having the best years of mine, socially speaking. But the studying part of it? As I said before, it may sound dramatic, but I can really see a comparison to cancer and other such nice diseases. For me it’s really a battle. A constant battle. Last year it was a battle that I was losing. But I didn’t want to give up. So I fought back. This year… the battle hasn’t stopped. I don’t feel as if I’m losing it, as much as I did last year. But it certainly also doesn’t feel as if I’m winning it.

I’m seeing a therapist, once a week when I’m lucky and our schedules match. I already know that I’m having troubles with performance anxiety. A few weeks back, however, my therapist told me something that made me wish it was just performance anxiety. According to her, and I really trust her, there is a very real sense that I might be battling a social anxiety. How does that have to do with performing and your studies you ask? Well, for the precise details you’ll just have to look it up. This blog is already long enough. What it comes down to, is that performance anxiety usually only has to do with exams and other things that require someone to perform(and yes, being on stage or in front of others can be part of that). The difference with social anxiety is that the second one takes that anxiety and pulls it over a larger area. It’s not just doing well in school, or at work, but also in my social life and every other aspect of what I do. And don’t do of course.

It’s a disease that I’ll at least have to battle for a really long time. Just like cancer. And just like leukaemia there are chances that I’ll ‘get better’. That I’ll grow past it. But what I’m really battling, isn’t so much to completely lose it and get it out of my system, as that I’m battling to make sure that it doesn’t take over my entire life. That I’ll get so frightened that I don’t dare to do anything anymore, too scared about everything. I’ve lived like that. I wasn’t happy. I’m putting that behind me and try to live more of a life that I can be happy with and where I do things that I love. Just like Akkie still tries to live the life of a normal girl her age, go on school camp, play soccer, giggle with girls. I’m blooming, but it’s costing me.