I don't particular like talking about myself. Unless, of course, it's about the basic stuff. I love to tell people how old I am, where I'm from, what I study, what I like to do in my spare time and stuff like that. But whenever people try to reach in the deep puddle of mud I - as everyone else I'm sure - am covering somewhere, I just shake my head and tell them no. Not any further. The road sign says stop and turn around!

Perhaps that's why it's more easy to just write it down. Paper doesn't have a judgment ready for you. Paper doesn't tell you 'to go home with your shit and start bothering someone else with it' (yes, this is what I was told, if not with those words, but definitely with that meaning, by someone I considered my best friend back then). Well, neither does a blog in some virtual space on the internet. Maybe you guys will think 'what the fuck is she bitching about?!' but well... go ahead

Well, at any rate, there's a thought that's been stuck in my head for a couple of days now. You know, my dad passed away 4,5 years ago. I was nineteen and I remember someone telling me I was too young to lose my dad. That no one ever should lose a parent before they reached their twenties. I remember thinking: what are you telling me? When ever is a good or proper or assigned time to lose either one of your parents? And truthfully, I had long said goodbye to my dad. When I was 15 or 16. Not that he left my life, not in the flesh oh no, I still lived at his house. But mentally, emotionally, yes, I didn't have a father anymore when I was 15 or 16.

Well anyway, I'm drifting away. My mom told me that, at my dad's funeral, a collegeau of his came to her and said: 'You know, we didn't even know he had a wife and kids.' Or slightly different words, but at any rate it kinda came down on the same thing and my mom was totally shocked. I never knew this, until she told me a few days ago. I was shocked when she told me this. She said that when this man had told her this, she wondered with whom she had been living all those years. That she, in the end, hadn't known my father one bit.

How sad is that? How sorry is that? To live with a man from your 17th til his death on your 59th and at his funeral someone crushes your whole life with that one, just by sharing a couple of words with you?

So, when she told me this, I started to think back. Back to those days when I still loved my dad, when I still was glad he was around. You know, he worked for the film and television industry and he worked for one of the most popular detective shows in Dutch history. A show called 'Baantjer'. And I remember he took me to the set one day, I believe I was 12, at any rate I still loved my dad, otherwise I'd never come along. And I remember him being funny. I remember him laughing. I remember him having a good time. We stayed there for hours, even had lunch or dinner, can't remember which anymore as we had warm food, but it can very well be that they used to eat warm food as lunch, and he had fun, laughed, cracked jokes, and everyone around me told me how amazing he was.

At that time, I didn't understand. I mean, I didn't distinct his personality on that set from his personality at home. I had no clue. I was 12, no kid around that age thinks about his/her parents in that way. Parents are just parents and they behave as parents. But now that mom had told me this, I saw the pieces fitting into each other.

And now, I wonder. Who was my dad? If my mom doesn't know, then how can I?