Amsterdam, part ...

(June 2008)

Perhaps the two most popular sentences people often hear from me is "I love Amsterdam." and "I have no plan living here." After all, with my consciousness, they could be interpreted as "I love myself." and "I don't want to love my individual self for the whole life."

Woman is thought to be very well-planned, with work, with family. I'm well-planned with myself if you know that I want to live in New York if I live my single life and for my divorced life, I would come back to A'dam.

I remember being in New York more than one year ago, shouting out "I love my life!". I told myself that I had lived for myself and I could live the rest of my life for my parents, for people around me. It hadn't come the time with a lot of things happen and it hadn't come the time that I could ever think of living myself alone. Sex & the City is very New York. People love NY and people live in it. I don't intend to be an investment banker, being in Wall Street if I live there, but a waitress, or in a grocery's, yet manage to live in Manhattan. Manhattan is an island, but crowded and fabulous. It's crowded and it's busy, and it's America, people take life easier, less serious than in Europe.

I come back to Amsterdam, got more connections with people to know that 35% of the population is Amsterdam is single. I was happy for myself because I was in the majority, with that fact (more than half of the population here is colored too.) There are lesbians, gays, drugs, sex,... everything is legal. Why is that? Because people are accepted here, whoever they are. I had one entry, almost two years ago, about the people I saw on streets, at tram stops. I saw their values. I don't know why I came up with that myself. And that's what makes me say I'm not going to live here. It's not NY to be so busy. It's not any other Asian country to be busy with people around, to go with the traffic. You have a lot of things to enjoy in this city but somehow, not only me but a lot of people have the feeling that they are totally with themselves. It's not a feeling, it's a fact. Amsterdam gives you a vantage point to see things, to look backward and forward that sometimes you don't really want to be at that point.

The same thing I have between New York and Amsterdam is I really breathing, consciously. You just feel youthful, sometimes even exploding with yourself because you are there to live. Living there is just independent! Independent and fabulous. But is that because I'm living alone and need an interesting place to fill up my life? I came over my friend's site seeing the pictures of her engagement. I was scared. There is a sentence that you can put on your page, which is your favorite. Mine is "The present is a present", hers is "To love and to be loved are the greatest things". At that time I thought "I still love my life, I love the independence." I even thought it's a pity for those who can not travel, who doesn't know how beautiful your spirit is free. I've stopped defining 'winner' and 'loser' because if I still do, I would finally put myself in the 'loser' category.

I recall opening up the first page of Alan Greenspan's. That moment, I knew that I was going to read a not very turbulent book, because on the first page is "To my beloved Andrea". How busy people are, they still have time to live in love. I don't indeed like living in Sai Gon. I had so much time with friends that I said "living in SG is ok as you don't feel the need of love." To live in Amsterdam, seeing me young, independent to the extent that having no need for anybody, sometimes I think that's even worse. People, single, divorced, separate in Amsterdam do live, work and spend time enjoyable, meaningful. People have to live to the most as they know they lack some certain things. After all, almost everyone is incomplete but is it good or bad to know yourself that you are incomplete?