Tell us what you’d like us to know about yourself:

I can be very intrigued by perspectives.

Born in 1961, Aquarius, second of four children. Recently I wondered about the freedom I had as a young girl to play outside all the time and even go to the woods whenever I wanted. Still, after some weird things happened, I was allowed to go. I am an outside person and not afraid of being alone in nature. But I do prefer the company of a dog. 

I think I gave my own children also a lot of freedom for adventure, but not as much as I had. Independence and freedom, autonomy, and creativity are significant to me. In the last five years, I allowed myself to follow that desire. When you have learned to take care of other people first, I find it pretty hard to change that and take good care of yourself. Automatic behavior is challenging to change. But self-care and self-love might be the most important: If you don’t make time for wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness—a powerful Wim Hof quote. 

What Do You Do for Work?

I am educated as a pre-school-teacher and did a lot of related work. I love children, the way they think, play, and move. But the thing I could hold on the longest was modeling. I loved the freedom and the diversity of the jobs. That was during the 90’s, no photoshop and analog photography: a simple pimple could ruin the photoshoot…

Nowadays I work with wool, as a textile artist. That’s all about beauty and softness: the method I use is wet-felting, which I taught myself through YouTube. Limitless possibilities. It brings me a lot of happiness.

What’s the Biggest Risk You’ve Ever Taken?

That might be the time somebody talked me into a high-speed night galop on horseback. She claimed the horse always knows where to go and it would be safe enough. It was a trust issue. She was right, nothing bad happened and it was a great experience. But afterward, I think it was irresponsible…

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I have to deal with depression since childhood. But here I am, still, that can make me proud sometimes. I learned a lot from meditation and acceptance is very important. I don’t fight it anymore.
I swim every morning, I am blessed to live close to a swimming pool, it helps to calm the brain.

What’s on your nightstand?

Haha, it can be very crowded there. Anything I might need such as lip balm, hand creme, telephone, water bottle, glasses, a few photos, the crystal I wear during daytime.

If You Had a Warning Label, What Would It Be?

Fragile, please handle with care.

What makes you happy?

Being with my children is still on top of that list Creating stuff. My dog Peppi, is an unexpected gift from life. Seeing what my children achieve in life and following their Instagram accounts. Nature always brings a lot of joy. Helping people out.

What Would You Tweet to Your Younger Self?

Hi dear, don’t take it all so seriously and it is okay to choose for yourself.

Best/worst things about aging?

Maybe you finally understand beauty has to do with other things than just skincare and the absence of wrinkles. There was a moment when I realized that I was mainly occupied with hiding things, such as wrinkles, and hair color. That didn’t bring much joy and was just expensive.

I decided to cut my hair to see what color grey would appear. I was surprised by a beautiful white silver and now I wear it proudly. And it matches with the wrinkles. 😉

What’s your current age and how old do you feel?

I am 59, from 1961. Sometimes I feel like eighty, on bad days but there are also moments I feel like in my twenties. Playing with children allows me to feel four or five again.