I waited a bit with writing because i wanted to enjoy the month with my friend, Jolien, who came to travel one month in Mexico. Instead of looking to myself with writing and reflecting , i reflected to myself trough ‘being with two’. I am not used to travel with 2. From being alone to sharing a bed with 2 every day the first 2 weeks. It is a big difference. But i enjoyed a lot so far. We had some beautiful moments together. Visiting beautiful places, local markets, good restaurants, many coffees and drinks😁. In one way, traveling with 2 gives more freedom, for example, to stay in more remoted places because we can share costs of a cabine and a car. Our to go walk outside in the evening, to go to the toilet without all the luggage 😃and many other things.

I think we have a good connections to travel together, it must be like that because i know i am not an easy person to live with, also we were a lot of time together the whole day from waking up until going to bed. I think it is important to speak a lot and be very open to eachtother about what you want and feel and i think we are like that. Our friendship started trough the cancerorganisation, Jolien became ‘my budy’. Somebody who supported me during treatments and even joined me to almost all chemos from the moment we met. We became friends, once on the way to the hospital Jolien asked me some things i wanted to do in my life. I told her about discovering more places, jumping out of an airplane somewhere in a beautiful place. She invited herself and told me we will do this one together 😃. I am lucky with this, because she came to Mexico and last week we jumped. It was an amazing experience. I would do it over again immediately, we jumped at lake Tequesquitengo. A warm place so we could jump in our normal clothes. I can’t describe the feeling, going up with this little plane and an amazing view, sitting all close together with the instructors and videoman between eachtothers legs 😃, ready to share this experience, Jolien next to me, both excited, than preparing and jumping. Having the adrenaline and after that just enjoying the breeze, the quietness and the amazing view! I really loved it.

But this weeks where also intense to me. Jolien made me reflecting a lot on myself. Just because she was there already made me see many things i do for the moment, and also because of things she asked me. She never pushed me our told me i should change but she made me realise it myself trough the things she asked me. It is very scary but she made me see that the eating disorder from in the past never really disappeared, my anorexia. Moments i feel scared and feel i lose control about my life, i still look to control my weight. Very scary to see it from myself but at the same time very good because when i see this, i can change back and fight agains it. It is not easy for somebody else to make me see this but she did.

I never want to go back to hospital for this so i will never let this happen. I was there begore and they prepared me there for moments like this. How i should deal. I need to learn to accept bad feelings because sometimes when i am having scary moments and don’t let the feeling be there i don’t take time to look why i have this feeling, i look for control instead and be busy. I cheat on myself and do like everything is ok, that it is normal i eat the same every day. I tell myself it is normal that i eat only vegetables because ‘ i need this to recover from chemotherapy’ but i see now it is all excuses to control my weight again. The cancer i have is an other excuse now i can use to lie to myself. I just see it again trough little things Jolien told me, also because i weight myself somewhere when we went to some mall and i saw it was a bit low. I need to accept being scared and looking from what instead of looking for control in other things.

Jolien never said to much about it but she made me see it without words. I found out for example how we walked a long time before finding the restaurant that was ok for me. She just followed me and said nothing , she stayed patient but because she was with me i felt more pressure to decide and noticed i am really walking around a long time first because i want to find ‘ the good place’ it is not normally we are still looking for something and walked already longtime around. But maybe this is also a bit my perfectionism and because i want to find ‘ the best’ for us. If i am alone i don’t notice this things. I also started seeing all the things i did when i was alone, and saw that the eatingdisorder is a bit back for the moment. I am happy i see this, it is time for me i think to find out what i am scared of. This is nit a big problem , i was a bit shocked when i started realising this and got a bit scared but i took some time and now i am happy i know and i can change again. Jolien can deal very well with this, she never push me into anything and makes me see things myself. Because at the end only ‘me’ can help myself in this, pushing don’t works it would only makes me angry i think.

First i thought it was maybe because i am scared of the cancer. But i don’t think this is the problem because i really don’t think about cancer when i feel little things in my body. I am not scared of the death. That is maybe also why i am not scared of doing adventurous things. I think it is something deeper inside of me, i will take time to work on this now. Starting with the food. I know i am a bit lost for the moment in my life, but i think we all have moments like this. I just have this eating disease that makes me feel ‘safe’ in this moments and less lonely. But i can do this, i don’t want it to disapear because i don’t see that happening but i can make it come back on the background in my life 💪. I just have to start again put my weight a bit higher and it will be mire easy to think about what the real problem is, because at the end it has nothing to do with food, but we can think better on a normal weight. It is a very strange thing, and a challenge to travel with it. Because when you have people close to you who knows you, they could make you notice you that you change back again and started changing. But when you are with people you just know for a little they don’t know if you are different or not than before.

But i love living abroad, going back would also not help me feeling better so i need to find my way here to deal with it. Maybe i should start staying longer and realy start living in the places i travel. So i meet some people that i can tell about this. I will also keep living in hostels with other people around me and not in airbnbs were i stay alone, only from time to time.

Physically i am doing pretty well for the moment. I just had this infection in my mouth last week maybe because my immune system is still weak, but i bought some stuf in the pharmacy and it is solved now. Also i went with Jolien to some doctor that put my 4 weekly injection i need for my hormonetherapy. At the same time we also did a visit for her because she js struggling with some belly problems the last days.

We saw some amazing things together,new memories. I feel lucky with a friend like this. Now she will almost go back and i will move on here. I am happy with the new memories and things i discovered in our travells. When i will be alone again it will be time to work on myself again a little. But i am ready for it!

I hope i will stay ‘healty’ like now for a long time so we can create more new memories in the future.😁