freedom

My name is Renate Hunfeld.

I am free.

I was born in heaven, where everything I wanted was possible. I had a save upbringing, there was no war, my parents were there for me, took care of me, I could go to school, I studied, i was loved. receiving all the attention and support i needed to be a good girl…

and this was just the intro.

than I grew up.. at about 17, I started to realise and learned that the earth is in danger. I was a girl, studying fashion, I could just spend my time inventing new ways, ideas, and everybody around me supported me. I was on TV, made an ‚eco friendly‘ final exam collection at the School Of Arts in Utrecht Holland. Cum Laude. Nobody put a gun at my head, nobody told me to stop what I was doing. I was free, born free, born in heaven. And still, when I would be over worked, stressed, depressed, I could just take a break… go see a doctor, or not….

or move on. why not? nobody told me, what I was doing was politically incorrect. because where I was born it wasnt anyway. nobody stopped me. I was a young pretty woman with dreams, a had a totally free way, looking into the bright future. Everything and just little worries. And for those little worries there was always a way, a solution, help, support.

I moved from Holland to Germany. A carreer move. Everything was possible, the sky was the limit…new experiences, growing, new friends, lovers, travelling, all, I had it all! nobody stopped me…even as a single woman, I was not doing anything forbidden.

I got married, In Vegas… crazy. I was free, I could be crazy, just took a plane! so could all people around me, whe all could do whatever we wanted… fly, be happy, get married, have kids, buy a house, move away, buy a car… and if you were just a little down… there would always be something else… help, another way… another life concept.. get divorced… move away… sell your car… whatever… everything was possible…

I became a mother. the luckiest in the world. Now I was even free to complain about little mother problems… no time for myself… no time for friends, not going out.. but if it would be really too much, I knew I had a good family back up, friends.. a heaven I lived in..Nobody wanted to take my kids away from me, I was never threatend. My kids grew up safe. with a health insurance. with school. with freedom of speach.

I kept working in fashion.. I was a teacher of Marketing, as a woman, I started an agency, I was a freelancer and opened a fair trade fashion store.. dreaming about being a business woman. still the sky was the limit. always. nobody stopped me, I still wasnt doing anything politically incorrect. I was free as a woman to do whatever I wanted.

when I got very ill, I had to stop my carreer, close my store and agency. But I still could be a mother, still could think of creative ideas, in a small way. Just ajust life. Ajust things to what was possible for me, nobody stopped me. nobody told me even now your life is over.

I was insured. I got the help. I got the money. I got the medicine. I still got what I needed. Although life changed. Although I got very ill and even though my carreer ended. I am still a mother. I am still alowed to do whatever I want, even on a level, however i ‚can’… I get support, I still have friends, a family… doctors… I am still in heaven.

If you read all this, and compare it with the life of someone, a young woman, who was born in a country where there is no freedom, or where there is a war, or a religious ban on freedom of women, or anything in life…

If you read all this, and you would compare it with the future of our own ‚rich western‘ children, and their children. what future are they facing? with what freedom, and or restrictions?

lets get on the streets. for the future of our children, and for their children. For children, mothers, fathers in war zones. For our endangoured environment and wildlife.

For freedom of speech. against racism, sexism, and right extremism.

Just get on the streets, for being greatfull for what we had. For what we still have and what we want to keep.

Lets all skip Black Friday this year and join the next Global Climate Strike on the 29th of November 2019.

Make a change for keeping what we have. Freedom.

I will be there. Because I can. Because nobody will stop me. Because I still won’t be doing anything against the law…although I am a woman, although I am a mother, and although I am ill.

sweet potato

I have changed.

I made a sweet potato carrot haloumi oven dish and dropped it. on the floor. it slipped out of my hands.

no meat. I loved meat but not now. not the mas production antibiotic meat, where animals live a terrible life, and than drive 500 km stuck in a dirty sweaty truck, to be killed brutally.

I love vegetables. lots of them. Always did, but I love cheese too, and creamy things. feta, ricotta, sour cream… I am not vegan, although I love making vegan dishes regularly.

There was a time in my life, my dutch boy friend ( at the time) and me had 2 little cows and plenty of goose and chicken. I biked every morning around 5 AM to the shed and fields and fed them. that was 30 years ago. that was our meat.

before that, when I was living at home, my mum always bought a cow in September, and shared it with neighbours. the cow came from a local free range farmer/ butcher and we would all sit there a whole weekend packing small packages of meat for the freezer, and we would all live from it a whole winter long and knew it was good meat.

now, it all changed.

our meat is no meat but a cheap unhealthy once breathing product for the so expensive lifestyle we believe we have, frying it every day again, for the price of a role of toiletpaper we need to wipe our ars with after.

no meat. i loved meat but not now.

and now i dropped my food. sweet potato with carrots and haloumi cheese. all on the floor.

and I changed.

I didnt order take away instead. I don’t want the trash, the packaging, the waste, the foodoras, bring-ring-deliver- things and whats their names.

It’s over. the silly lifestyle of meat eating, the silly lifestyle of wasting food and buying new.

I actually never did that but still felt part of it. I was still part of this lifestyle, everybodies lifestyle. I belonged there somehow. but not anymore since today.

I dropped my lovely non meat veggie food and I rather go hungry.

I have changed.

can my 16 year old daughter do the washing? or the battle of a mother for ‚absolute‘ perfectionism……

its holidaytime! jippie! everything is immediately in a mood of chill. no school, no early stress getting up packing lunches and 2 puberty breathing things in the house that have dropped everything from school stuff to their own moving body parts as soon as that final school bell rang….

recognisable I guess, if you are in that same situation, weither you have boys or girls at home between 13 and 19.

most of the times parents in that situation only have to look at eachother when something is discussed regarding the puberty phase of their kids and go: ‚yep, right…haha!‘

but I had to experience something different the other day, which I would like to express here as pretty hilarious. I am not perfect. I didnt go to a school of how to become a domestic goddes, and never ever had the nerves or patience to understand the seriousness of parenting. I just go with the flow, and act on whats coming my way. totally unprepared. I am only lucky I have this gift of being a pretty good organiser, and that does come in handy some times.

maybe its because I am a single mother, that some people have the feeling they can just throw anything regarding improving my upbringing to my head, without giving it a thought. or maybe I am wrong, and also mothers within a secure zone of a respected partner experience the same.

I am curious, let me know.

so there are 2 statements that came my way the other day, which I would like to unraffel;

in the constelation of 2 holidays of my children, with only a short time in between the 2, to prepare the next holiday, and wash the content of 2 suitcases, I expressed that I had only one day to do that. no problem by the way, as I said, I am a good organiser, just that in my disabled life, its a task, and I know my friends worry if I can manage it all, but I am not complaining. its just a simple fact of holiday luxery.

‚well.. isn’t it about time your 16 year old daughter knows how to do a washing by now?…‘

Bam! in the face, and me being me, my first reaction was total devestation, thinking I am a crap mother, and forgot to drill my daughter with the ropes of life survival.

‚why do you want to be so perfect all the time? who cares if the wash is not perfect during the holidays?‘..

seriously? ‚uhmmmm… what???

lets get back to the total beginning of my post here, and right back into that feel of chill… are you feeling me? ;))

I think my daughter knows how to wash. or rather; put a machine on, with idealy only her own complete wardrobe. she is 16 for god sake!! its perfectly ok on a normal school time saturday if she runs a machine just for herself, with 2 pairs of knickers and a bra. But PLEASE!!! If I would hand over the complete family washing for 2 weeks holidays, in the hands of a 16 year old, I am just an idiot!

Is that perfectionism? no haha, just stupid sence, to choose that one single day inbetween holidays as a mother, to be in total charge of washing, cleaning and preperation of the feeld trip ahead.

because, I just don’t want to end up in an RV, with the whole content of my daughters wardrobe and my son standing there without knickers and socks. right? 😩

thats not perfectionism people! thats putting myself through just 1 stressy day of domestic work, knowing I can finally relax an chill on the holiday to come..

and when I am laying on my stretcher in front of the van, with my book, overlooking the atlantic sea, and give it a good sigh of total happiness, I probably realise, or think, i might have left the iron on at home…..

happy holidays everyone!!

talk through me

the other day someone asked me why i was not going to parties & invites for larger groups of people anymore.

my answer is often: ‚oh I am too tired‘

which actually is true, but not really a true answer to the question.

since last years diagnose and the IC drama and getting back into life, i did live a very strict day routine of pure priorities; kids, food on the table, washing, cleaning the house, shopping & walking the dog, at least 5 hours rest in between and back to bed at 20:00.

sounds pretty boring for you but I can tell you when life has nearly been taken from you, and you can barely walk, anything else but the main things to survive with your kids through each day, has become unimportant. its even so that when I shortly step out of this ‚boring‘ day routine and go away ( with the kids and dog!) I can get really scared and easily blame myself of living ‚unhealthy‘ again and that I might loose control. Sounds like food for a psychologist but I am aware of it all and of everything I do and don’t. should do or won’t. every fucking day. with chemo, therapy, pills, choices of food, pain, fatigue and resting time…  it seems a boring life, but if one of you out there lives a life like me, you know even the boring things like putting a wash in the machine can be a real challenge one can go really happy about!! If at the time I could ‚jump for joy‘ to stand up in a shower by myself, I would have!

I have had so much support and incredible love from friends and family, who helped me to fight and get back on track. there is this loving team of people right behind me who give me so much comfort and trust in myself and me in them. I don’t know where I would have been without them.

I love seeing each one of them regularly, at my place or out or at theirs, but one on one, sharing and having fun. what I can’t do is seeing large groups of people.

why that is took me a while to figure out.

but its simple. I am often immediately the center of attention in a group. ‚ psst thats the friend of … who has cancer and nearly died… ‚ something like that.

I am at a party for someones Birthday. Its not about me, its about her or him. I don’t want to be the star of the evening.

so I walk in there pretending all is cool and alright, just so everybody thinks I am healthy and good.

than I join a simple conversation… name any common topic people like to talk about… job, hair, things that happen to you when getting older; backpain, migranes, allergies, whatever…

and as soon as I want to join in the conversation and add some funny thing about my hair in the heat of the conversation, the room freezes. everybody is quiet, feels weird, thinks their  problems are nothing against mine.

but thats not true. I am not special or different and still feel the same things with or without hair. and next to that I also care and seriously want to know how my friends are doing. don’t ever compare a broken wrist with having chronic cancer. there is no similarity between the two and there is also no ‚ better‘ or ‚worse‘. both are shit. simple as that.

If one of my friends suffers, has pain, worries, I want to know and talk about it. the only way I can say that or explain is when I am just seeing someone alone or a small crowd.

I realized this is what people go through in wheel chairs, parents of a disabled child,  or a kid in a big class room who just lost a parent, a refugee who is in Europe without her or his loved ones…and for me, literally those are worse things than what I am dealing with.

survival is seeing the reality of it all, be realistic, sarcastic, rude, loving, funny, direct and real.

talk through people. search behind the curtains of a person’s disaster. It really makes the difference. X

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cutting nails on teath..

Tamoxefen is a medicine that is subscribed when you had breast cancer. its a hormone based medicine and you have to take it daily for about 5-10 years, depending on your health situation during that period. every three months there is a check up to see how you are, and tamoxefen is your partner for the next possible hopefully only 5 years……

………

never read the instruction leaflet, because you can not think of anything you can not get from taking this medicine.

there is at first basic fatigue… basicly. than we can for sure count on other reactions like anger, mood chances, no sleep.

weight loss, depression or heavy depression…burn out? yep!!! ticked all boxes! What???!!

i have to take it all into account and ajust my life….

but than.. i can not find on the leaflet anything that is happening to my teath. i‘ve got shark teath since. its not in the leaflet??

talking to other „ex“ tamoxefen patients, i know it seams to be common. teath get sharp as knives and you can easily cut yourself….. 

okay! I am a shark now…

Burn Out…

today i walked my dog in the evening and passed by a garden full of loud teenagers celebrating ‚Abi‘ ( school finals)…

it made me smile again and i thought of my kids getting there in approx 4/6 years….I thought: ‚I want to be there than! for fuck sake! i want to be part of that’… and i finally started to cry, which honestly i cant do since so long…

it was the first happy future thought in so many Months. you just can not imagine what i had to go through. I thought I really had given up on everything….

One kick in the face after the other… cancer.. treatment.. fear… divorce… courtcases… fear.. alone… kids & no money… fear…

i am totally burned out. i can not even imagine how to arrange a day, although i am still doing it every day. each drive to the supermarket, or each washing in the machine is a mountain to climb…

seeing myself in the mirror is horrid. watching other people on the streets being happy family and healthy is scary….

i feel insecure, horrible and am scared.

i know. people who are all carreer focussed might think, what a silly woman to post this. but you know, its different now. i am not super woman anymore. and so what? 

maybe I actually dont want to be super woman anymore..

i have a burn out…

and soon… one day i will get out of this just as a woman and a mother of 2 wonderful kids and a dog… celebrating a school final…

because thats actually all i want right now… x

the year after

today I copied a post on FB about cancer  it finally made me cry.

you see, I can not cry anymore since years and the simple release of tears was feeling better than an orgasm.

the thing that made me cry is the fact that someones personality changes after or with cancer. I am dealing with that since the last radiation I had. during the whole last therapy I have build up a mental power to survive. so strong I can not even believe it now myself.

its gone. after the last radiation, ( which means the secure treatment cocoon you are leaving is gone), you are left on your own and it comes to your face like a boomerang. dispite psychological help weekly.

today and since at least 8 Months I am fighting the fear. But more important I am fighting, or discovering a new me and the fact is I am not sure yet weither I am fighting or finding.

because:

instead of being happy about little things you easily are sad.

instead of feeling secure you feel scared.

instead of the full power you had you are just burned out.

instead of being full of creative ideas you have none.

instead of wanting to reach goals…you really don’t care.

I never knew this would happen to me, where i know very well cancer happened to me.