When I found the photos of my bedroom from when I was 16 years old, I was already, or still, shaky from realizing how little I had known about myself.
And how it had lead me to living the wrong *include heavy swearing* life.
When I think of how I am going to make up for decades, I catch myself thinking somewhere along the lines of:
“Louise Hay and Anais Nin were both over 40 before becoming successful.”
Or even:
“Nelson Mandela made something out of his life, when he came out of prison.”

After having screwed up the first half of my life;
I know I will not allow the second half to go to waste.
No way.

Yet, it still boggled me!
How had it even been possible to SLEEP THROUGH two decades of working in yoga, an industry based on enlightenment, consciousness, mindfulness?
Out of ALL the industries, how had I managed to not notice how much of a misfit, how much not-me ness, how much stuff that DIRECTLY conflicted with my values, had been part of yoga?
When I had all the overeating, all the non-practicing, all the not being interested in whatever the flying fuck was going on in my industry, to prove it.
“HOW?!” I ask of thee.

Especially because for the first 30 years of my life;
I DID NOT make mistakes like that!
I came out ready and able, and knowing who I was. And my life was in full alignment of that.

If I had just kept on going, I would not just have rocked at life;
I would have been a beacon of inspiration and entertainment.
And not a swearing like a sailor, middle-aged woman, who can’t believe she let life slip through her fingers for such a vast period of time.

30! I was THIRTY when I took the wrong turn!
Well, almost. I was 29.
Not an age where anyone thinks:
“Oh, we better watch Suzanne. This is a critical age!”
And it was also not an age where I myself was like:
“Oh, going on 30! Better watch out, because here’s where many have failed before me!”
* frowns eyes and stares intensely and unforeseen future*

Nobody watches out at 30.
And neither did I.
Although, although! That is not true!  
I had for years escaped having an office job, and when I caved and gave up on my independence, doing yoga was my escapism.

But then I started getting trained as a yoga teacher, and became that. I thought I had escaped the office job and that teaching yoga would bring me something a normal job didn’t.
Only to then wake up 20 years later.

Maybe that is the cruelty of it all;
You think you escape the monster of mundane office life, only to end up with another job that wasn’t right. 

And yet, before we talk Jon Bon Jovi posters, because I will get to that as well, I have always known for a fact that there was nothing wrong with yoga;
Contrary to something (in my opinion) inherently being wrong with office life.
So I can understand why I thought yoga would be good for me, or an improvement of sorts, because yoga is good.

There really is nothing wrong with yoga practitioners, and being a yoga teacher was and is a noble profession.
Which is why it took me so many years to realize that I ve wasted 20 years of my life. Finding photos from 1988 made the message extra raw and unpalatable;
It had been all there.

My 1988 bed proves I knew exactly who I was, and that I would rather die than cave. I would back myself up, do or die, my way or the highway.
Until…. 

The two photos with all the posters from Jon Bon Jovi, are of my bedroom in the attic.
They are taken in February, this is about a good year after Bon Jovi became famous in the Netherlands.
So it’s not that long.
Yet from the number of posters, and the way they are arranged, you can see I have been collecting and even curating them. The posters I selected for this location, are assorted by size.
One poster is double, it’s in the six piece above my head. But because the posters are hung up in a way that is pleasing to the eye, this does not matter.
It’s the perfect mosaic.

A few months later, I took the posters down.
I had started dating, and although I would remain an avid fan, I thought my bedroom should be more neutral. Or adult. Serious.
I know these things, both staying an avid fan and taking the posters down, because I have another photo where the posters are gone.
And I went to the Bon Jovi concert late that year.

My love for Jon Bon Jovi or Bon Jovi, had not changed.
It was purely because I thought that dating involved only showing the pleasant, the datable, love-worthy, side of yourself.

And that the wild, boy-crazy, bathing myself in paper-testosterone version of me, would not be welcomed.

In retrospect, the moment I took those posters down, was the moment I started presenting myself as something I am not.

In the other photo, one I took at a later date, I still have an unmade bed.
But there are no posters.
There is no book.
The photo is uninteresting. I didn’t even bother to scan it.
It’s taken by daylight,  the white wall looks even whiter. The unmade bed looks cold and empty.

It’s a proper photo, the daylight one without any Jon Bon Jovi posters hanging on the walls.
The lighting is good, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Nothing.
Except of course the absence of all the liveliness, the realness, and the authenticity that was captured in the two grainy black and white pictures of a girl’s bed with Jon Bon Jovi covered walls.

I gained boyfriends, I gained a sex life. I gained being adult and grownup.

But at the cost of a wall of Jon Bon Jovi posters.

And the highest price of all;
At the cost of being me.

~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer

I m reviewing the 1995 – 1996 tour:
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