diana gabaldon – Take a walk!

It’s July, the year 2020 is halfway through, which seems a good time to look back upon the first half.

If ever I had expectations before it started it definitely turned out completely different, but with Covid-19 to deal with, that goes for all of us. However, I could never ever have imagined it would get worse than that.

What do you do as a parent when a child completely loses grip on the world and life? What do you do when trust is broken and the consequences of actions are so desastrous and violent that you only wish for your child to leave and never come back? That you even take actions that no parent ever wants to take, but that are the only solution to the problem?

Well, I know the answer now, but I can only speak for myself, because it’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life and I know not everyone can do it. The only way to justify it was to keep telling myself that I didn’t do it to punish. It was done out of love and protection. Because there are more people in this family, people who need a good place to live, a safe place. But most of all it was done to help.

When bad things happen people often ask themself why it happens to them, what did they do wrong? Why can’t they have a normal life, like everyone else? I was no exception to that rule. I never experienced the amount of mixed emotions on a daily basis like I did these past months. Anger and grief caused sleepless nights and exhausting days. Many times I wished I never had had children at all and couldn’t care less if I never saw my child again. But then memories popped up, of vacations, holidays and birthdayparties, of the moments that make a mother’s heart swell with joy and pride. Those memories left me in tears, desperately wishing I could turn back time and make this all go away, which, of course, is impossible. What’s done is done, you have to deal with it.

And then that same child needs your help, despite everything that happened and went wrong. And what do you do then? Do you let recent events set the course, or do you see the child as it used to be. The child you know, is still somewhere inside. The child you nursed and loved and helped through so many difficult moments in life.

Well, you open the door, set rules, make agreements and you take it back into your home, because, like author Diana Gabaldon once wrote: “Home is where they have to take you in”.

That decision wasn’t easy, oh no! My attitude was far from loving and caring, and when setbacks occurred I almost kicked my child out, again! But that last setback, that last horrible day seems to have been a turning point. For the first time in months there was honest talk, honest regret and insight that something needed to be done to turn this awfull situation into a positive outcome.

And steps were taken. Medication, therapy, rules, talking and (even more) listening! There is lots of talking and listening, and mostly I’m involved. The timing of talking is not always convenient, and it’s often a challenge to sit down calmly and listen, but I know how important it is. For both of us, yes for both. It’s important for the proces of healing and restoring faith. Faith that we will get through this together. Faith that it will turn out for the better.

Now, a few weeks later and after hitting rockbottom, it feels like we are slowly climbing up to the light, one small step forward at a time (and sometimes a step back) but up. Every good day is a good day added to the list of good days. We’re not there yet and it will still take a lot of time and patience, but there is hope that in the end we are able to say that this very bad time eventually turned out to a good outcome.

I like to travel. Whether for a day, weekend or a longer vacation, near or far, by car, train or plain, I’m in ‘travelmood’ from the moment I shut the frontdoor behind me. Together with my family I’ve spent wonderful days and vacations in various European countries and we’ve seen all kinds of interesting and beautiful sites. We loved especially Italy, France and Greece, but Belgium, Germany and Luxemburg made us happy as well. For years I also dreamed of travelling around in Norway or Sweden, but hubby’s health required a warmer climate. Scotland though was never on my wishlist, so how did I end up there?! Well, a TV show and a series of books is responsible for that!

Late November 2014, on a rainy and cold Saturday, hubby and I decided to watch the 8 episodes of a series called Outlander. I got hooked from the moment I heard the openingsong “Sing me a song of a lass that is gone”. It gave me goosebumps the same way I had when I heard the first notes of the music from Lord of the Rings in 2001. We bingewatched the 8 episodes and were left with frustration when the last one ended with one of the main characters sitting in a windowsill holding a gun …. WHAT THE ….???? This was the end??? I found out after searching the internet that there was more to come, although not sooner than in April 2015!

Since Outlander is based on a series of books written by Diana Gabaldon I decided to read them until the return on TV in April. Somehow I had heard of the books years before. I’m an avid reader and have been a member of a bookclub where you had to order at least one book every 3 months, and seemed to remember having seen (one of) the books in the catalogue. The reason I didn’t buy it must have been that it wasn’t the first book but one of the later books and that, since the bookclub only had recent books in the collection, the previous ones weren’t available. Later I found out that it takes Diana 3-4 years to write one book. It explained why previous books weren’t available in the bookclub. Searching for books wasn’t as easy as nowadays so I let it be. But now we have internet and Google! Long story short: I found the books, downloaded them on my e-reader and managed to read the 8 existing books before Outlander season 1 part 2 returned to TV in April! All 8995 pages!

Besides the human characters, Scotland plays a huge part in the books, especially the Highlands. So, when I joined social media in order to find out more about Outlander on TV and everything involved, that included Scotland. I found out that there was, and still is, an enormous fanbase on social media, and it didn’t take long before I met a group of likeminded women with whom there was a ’click’. Outlander was the main subject, but the filmlocations and Scotland became important too, and after a few months we, 7 women from 3 different countries, planned a trip to Scotland. We talked about it daily in our private group and when we finally met in person at the beginning of our roadtrip it was as if we had already met before.

Our trip was a real roadtrip, travelling by ferry, train and car. In Scotland Steve McLeish from Outlandish Journeys was our guide during a 4 day tour. By car he drove us from Edinburgh, into the Highlands to Inverness, showing us Outlander filmlocations and historical places and sites during this journey, with the Jacobite Risings as a guideline. This wasn’t just an Outlanderbased tour, it was a journey into Scotland’s history as well, and Steve, being a historian, was the perfect guide. Needless to say it was a trip of a lifetime, leaving all of us with a desire to come back to this beautiful country as soon as possible. It took me 3 years….