If I could, I would...

Any sentence that starts or includes this combination of words is doomed.

We are all brought up a certain way, regardless of who and how your family is or where you grow up. Some ways are better than others, some are just different. As I bluntly stated in my previous post, I have been experiencing a certain unquietness for a while and, with time, it became apparent that the whole experience of living and working in The Netherlands is, if not coming to an end, at the very least, not meeting my expectations any more.
I first noticed this half a year ago when, for the first time, it was fucking hard for to come back after two weeks away, but at the time, I thought it was the thick end of a very cold and long winter playing with my head.
Then, without quite realizing it, I started building sentences that included statements like "If I could" or "I would" or even both. I didn't notice it at first, but the repetition quickly became obvious. I also found myself daydreaming more often than usual, fantasizing about what it would be like to start my own business or give up my current career path and go to cooking school. The excuse I gave myself then, was that this had to be an early mid-life crisis and that it too should pass.

In the meantime, shit just continued to get worse.

After one particular difficult day out in the world, I came home and had an anxiety attack that was so profound and complex that I froze: I couldn't think, I could barely move, excruciating pain coming from my shoulders and neck and I couldn't raise my arms above my head. All caused by stress at work. I took 15 minutes to relax (not easy when you're a parent) and picked up the book I told you about in my previous post. There I found a chapter called "Lazy: A manifesto". I read it and the fog in my head started to clear. Very briefly: it talks about how busy is the buzzword these days, and how we go out of our way to make ourselves busy, mostly because we fear what might be of us if we're not busy (please know that summarizing this chapter like this is a sacrilege and you ought to read it to understand). I read another chapter. And another one. I ended up reading five chapters in one evening and devouring five more the next day.

At some point, I can't quite say exactly when, it hit me: I was the one making myself busy. I was also the one trying to avoid the obvious and then making it worse by making the "If I could..." or "I would...".
To go back to the beginning, this is you creating your own boundaries by limiting what you can or cannot, should or should not do based on how you were brought up, the standards of the society you are actively a part of or any other reason that will allow you to stay just a little longer in you comfort zone. That warm, cozy, familiar place on the corner of your sofa.

But like Barack Obama said ten years ago (yes, it's been years already): Yes we can. Yes you can. Yes I can.

Change is never easy and I don't even know what I want to do next. Here's what I know for sure: whatever it is that I'm doing right now, is just not working anymore.