Getting ready

Time is ticking by and I am not prepared to get back to the Netherlands. As usual this goes back to the issue of (lack of) self-acceptance. I had a dream last night, it was very long, one of these lifelike dreams. In the dream I was with my sister in law, about whom I have complex feelings. We were very close and intimate friends, and in the dream, my parents were already old (I dread that in particular; yesterday I came across an article in the newpaper about the new social problem that the Dutch labeled and are trying to solve, as they invariably do, which are "gangs" of old retired people who hand out in public areas and fast food joints and cafes, talking loudly {because they're deaf?} and not ordering enough, and just hanging out for hours, and how they were thrown out of a McDonalds and a whole issue started. It made me think that if the Dutch are so merciless I could never bring my parents to age with me in the NL; which just goes to show ho unrealistic & anxious I becomes when I am menustrating). Anyway to get back to the dream, they were old and me and my sister in law were hanging out a lot and feeding each other(?) fresh raspberries. I felt a lot in the dream, very close and intimate with her.
I wonder what it means. I woke up with a really special feeling. It's like when I denounce her, as I often do, I denounce a side of myself. I was trying to get to the bottom of that: why her eating disorder set me in a downwards spiral, and why I always look at her so critically. He clothes, her behaviour. A lot of times, she is just ridiculous, but she doesn't fear being ridiculous. She is so about being true to herself, she doesn't realize she is strange, or maybe she is defiant. My brother loves her, but they are such opposits in this. The irony is, when they were at my place, my "loyalties" were with my brother, who goes further from himself and more towards manufacturing for others. I think he is the one who really accepts himself, or accepts himself more than her & I do. The whole thing with her and why she does it so strangely is the struggle. But sometimes she seems completely unaware of others' perceptions of her. And my brother, unlike her, is aware, but doesn't give a toss (admittedly he is a lot more conventional both in his appearance, his behaviour with others, and what he does).
I know both of them represnt my issues to me. Ahh it's so hard to put these things into words. It comes out so academic and detached.
I will just try to describe them planely and "catch myself":
My sister in law: it is her demo that was playing in the car's CD player while I waited for my results "and I can feel that something new is at my door, something that I never met before".
She dresses in strange clothes. Not of any particular style; she kind of crossed the line there. It's hard for me not to look at her with a critical eye, just like I look at myself, and my body, with a very critical eye. I have been so lucky with her. I'd hate to have a trendy, judgemental sister in law, like myself, or my mum (I have always blamed my mum, but I see that my mum is more herself than many people; my dad is also quite critical, and more a perfectionist and by far less self-accepting than my mum. Although he has changed too, but my perceptions of them are still the ones of the child, when I was afraid.

I don't know, it's too hard to write about my family. Makes me uncomfortable. But I know that if I do want to break loose and treat myself better, I have to go through that.
I wish I had a psychologist, but on the other hand, something in me despises that. It's like, "I am strong enough to go through this without one".
Maybe if I write a book with fictional characters instead of trying to describe and grasp the real world (or my projections of the real world) I will be able to understand more than if I try to do it in this direct manner; or maybe this is just a way out, because what I am writing now feels way to personal, for the net, for myself. And maybe this is the achiever, the pleaser, the self-hater in me wanting to "kill two birds with one stone".
To be able to create, you have to accept yourself, to a degree. But maybe it is always a struggle between revealing and covering, for the people who do real art and are not just performers.
I am somehow not managing to get this off my chest.
And I feel, hey, wake up! In a week you'll be back in the NL! You wanted to come back thin and lean and now look at you, after days and days indoors (I brought a suitcase full of clothes that I haven't worn, self-tanners that I haven't applied, bikini...). You will be ashamed. And I have to remind myself that I am not surrounded by super-men and women at all, and that I have nothing to be ashamed of in any case (even a little flab is nothing to be ashamed of; and also, that maybe all this introspection does not have to be accompanied by the counter-action of self destruction through binging, smoking, getting mad and upset, struggling. No, getting mad and upset isn't the problem - the problem is not accepting that you're mad and upset, not admitting or legitimizing your feelings.
But I am myself and I have been myself for many years and I have been given every legitimacy to be myself (except fat, but I never wanted to be fat anyway, and that's not me, just an external manifestation of an addictive behaviour, that I've already kicked to a point).
And I have to rid myself of the guilt of not being productive in this visit. And forcibely remind myself that my super asked me not to do any work.
But a voice whispers it will be harder to get back to work like this... but why? The expectations, the Others, are all still there. The nagging voice inside of me who always bulies me much harder than society or anyone else, who is always harsher and cruder and less accepting. I now see why E. became so depressed when he was diagnosed and that this is what I despised the most about him. The self-denial. And the poor guy, I made it worse by denouncing him like this, it must have been such an effort for him to try to reach out to me. But I am not his therapist or his mother and I can't undo the wrongs of his past. I could have kept in touch, but there is only so much time. Now the poz guy wrote me. I have to write back and be honest and say I have a boyfriend. Or just disappear.