Rogier’s Road to Recovery

Sunday, October 8 2006

Dear Friends around the World,

Life can be tough : Sanne broke up with me in August. Sanne and I were together for seven and a half years and it was such an amazing time. Our relationship was pure, genuine and honest – I don’t think I would have changed anything if I could. We stimulated each other to pursue dreams, explore talents and think of others. Cancer and it’s treatment thoroughly disturbed the balance in our relationship, but we learned to accept what you cannot change, seize the moment when you can and focus on what is possible instead of what is not. In these times you show your real heart to each other and we made the best of it. We loved each other.

Sanne says* she has too much doubt lately. Sanne told me when I got back from a holiday in Croatia. We had planned a holiday in France one week later, and decided to go there anyway. The real shock for me came after we returned to Leiden – when we really separated.

Sanne is great – and I miss her. Her love is deep, rewarding and fulfilling. It took me weeks to merely understand what was happening and I still haven’t adapted to the new situation at all. I felt very sad, and later a bit angry: How can my love not be enough? Why are we not fighting for this relationship? How certain can you be with life in a state of flux? Of course, these are just flawed attempts at trying to deal with my feelings of frustration. I can’t be angry with Sanne – I never have been and I never had any reason to. I guess people can’t fully control their innermost feelings – and I think Sanne wished she had felt different about this.

- Paris & Parents
Afterwards I went to Paris with my parents and Died. It was nice to focus on the city, food and cycling for a couple of days. My parents told me at least 100 times afterwards that it was só good of me to gently force them to go on a holiday, for the first time after Martijn’s death. Since then they really got in the mood for holidays : they went to the Veluwe for a weekend, went to Flevoland to see wild animals and as I’m writing this, they are in Bremen, Germany, for a music festival. Keep that spirit!

- Sanne, continued
After her graduation last December, Sanne has been very picky in selecting possible future employers. This meant few applications and an thorough search for the right job – and her strategy has paid off. The Ministry of Economic Affairs hit the jackpot and hired Sanne as RijksTrainee as part of the prestigious traineeprogramme of the Dutch Government.
On top of that Sanne found a beautiful and yet affordable appartment in Leiden (that is given her new monthly check, I suppose ). And last but not least : her mother Marjan and Wim got married on July 11 in a beautiful, warm and intimate ceremony, see
http://www.van-willigen.net/weblog/2006/09/09/huwelijk-wim-en-marjan/

- Croatia
Together with five friends I went to Trogir in Croatia for two week. That was a lot of fun and you can find some nice pictures on my weblog :
http://www.van-willigen.net/weblog/2006/09/09/bs06-croatia/

- Lance Approves of my blog!
The Lance Armstrong Foundation has put up a link on its website to some 40 weblogs of cancerpatients/survivors who ‘blogged against cancer’ on Live Strong Day (May 17). By coincidence I just found out – and I’m thrilled! See my weblog for more.

- Conference on Cancer in Switzerland!
Next week I’m going to Lausanne to attend the 6th ISREC meeting on Cancer Research in Lausanne with some 25 members of my research-group at the Dutch Cancer Institute. That will be very interesting and fun at the same time.

Baz Luhrmann made a great song called ‘Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)’ in which he suggests that the real troubles you face will always come as a surprise. There is no way to anticipate them. I guess he’s right. I added music to my blog for your listening pleasure. I will add this song, too.

“Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”

Keep in touch! And direct beautiful girls to me if you find any!

Love, Rogier

* Please realize you are reading Rogier’s email. If you want to know exactly what Sanne thinks, go ask her. Having said that, I try to be fair here.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 9:09 pm and is filed under Cancer, Recovery-emails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.