I studied Arts and Social Sciences in Maastricht with her in the nineties. We were both from the same area and had no desire to move go and live ‘above the rivers’ somewhere else in the Netherlands. There was an instant click. As it happened, we both started questioning our choice of degree in our second year. Lots of philosophy, history, theory, analytic, critical thinking. How much did we enjoy that? And more importantly, where would we get a job afterwards? At one point, changing to a practical, social pedagogy degree seemed the best solution to us. We persevered, though – you have to finish what you started. Subsequently, this dynamic duo from Limburg started an internship in Rotterdam, at a museum about the human body and health that was yet to be built. The entrance was going to be iconic: a brightly coloured female figure, some thirty metres high, by the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle. The museum never materialised – financial issues. Nothing to do with us, actually, as the pay we received for our internship was just about enough to cover the rent on a shabby flat. In Dordrecht, of all places. I doubt our work was of an academic level. But we were being wonderfully creative, having fun, and our supervisors were happy enough. We lost touch after we graduated. She ended up in the world of art, books and culture. I chose journalism.
A while ago, I discovered she was very ill. She had suffered a brain contusion and her whole world had been thrown into disarray. A message on Instagram was enough to reconnect, but there was no chance to meet up, nor would there be for the foreseeable future. She recently announced her departure from her ‘professional’ life on LinkedIn. She wrote about how, as a “hermit in quiet seclusion”, she had found again and again that she was unable to keep up with the rest of the world, but – as positive as always – that there were still reasons to be hopeful.
I leant back and thought of the young women around me who were now living like hermits as a result of burnouts, long covid, debilitating migraines, or ME/chronic fatigue syndrome. Unwell and trapped in a body unable to move. Who had also had to say goodbye to their professional lives and have no reason to still be on LinkedIn. It is no great coincidence that the media is currently also full of articles about ‘silent recluses’ – last Thursday, there was a debate in parliament about post-covid and extending the specialist care in Dutch expertise centres (such as Maastricht). In an essay for Volkskrant Magazine, journalist Lisanne van Sadelhoff, who also ended up stuck at home on medical leave, wondered: Who am I without my work? “I loved my job, but my job didn’t love me all that much when things started to get tough.”
No tales of editorial choices, deadlines or spelling mistakes, this time. This time, an editorial about the reality of life outside the office, because we are all just people and we all know someone who is a ‘silent recluse’ nobody really talks about.
The editor-in-chief gives a look behind the scenes at the editorial office