I was restless, one week in Hamburg was already too much for me. But the social attachment to your home gets lost when you are away all the time like I was. I don’t know anyone around Hamburg anymore. I don’t really know how to get in contact with non-windsurfers. Going out at night, meeting new people, going to the cinema… I don’t know how to do that anymore. I can fly to El Yaque and have a conversation with a total stranger who doesn’t even speak the same language as I do, but at home in Germany I kind of lost the connection.
People say I am good at partying. But what’s good? I can’t even dance. With alcohol, shyness disappears. It made me feel more relaxed, more secure. But all the partying aside I have always been a serious person. When I did the PWA and EFPT I only partied the last night. But then… (giggles) a lot.
FRIENDS
It’s easy to comment on something on Facebook. But you see my telephone? It’s empty, no calls. I have a couple friends here in Hamburg. Carolina of course, my mum and dad, my cousin. Some of my friends from around the world might not get along very well with the topic, or maybe they don’t see the urgency. I guess it’s also because we’re in this world that is all about fun. Sunny beaches, wind, waves, nice girls, parties… being ill does not belong there.
It’s not that they don’t care. We just never expressed these feelings. Having cancer is so real and so difficult. How do you deal with that? To be honest, I can’t really blame them. I think I would have been the same towards them. We never really talked about serious issues, or expressed how we felt. It was always just ‘what sail will you take’, ‘what move will you do’ and ‘what chick will you hook up with’? It was like this for ten years. I guess I couldn’t really expect things to change overnight just because I had been diagnosed with cancer.
