Eat, sleep, and be merry. That was my plan for the Christmas week gone by. And that was pretty much how it went down. I slept more than ten hours per night the first two nights – surviving on less than six hours per night every single night during the four weeks leading up to Christmas, it was no wonder.
The problem with overindulging in food and sleep is that you get a bit soggy and slow-witted though. Our dreams, and lives really, have a way of slipping away from us when we are too passive, so in an attempt to find some zest to start writing again, I’m going to do a recap of the year gone by.
It’s fair to say it’s been a year to remember. Let’s go back to where it all begun…
January
London calling. With all the energy I could possibly muster up, I jumped on a plane to go chase a dream. Never been so disappointed in my life. In all aspects. Just when I thought it couldn’t possible go more wrong, next issue hit me. Sitting in a bath tub in Bayswater crying my eyes out was not how I had planned my 2013 would start, and I feared it was only the beginning.
Returned to dark and cold and snowy Helsinki all bleary-eyed, can’t say I remember much of the second half of January. I think I slept a lot.
February
Darkness continued. I can only find one picture taken by or of me during February. My diary is almost empty. I believe I went to Tallinn with my mother, if I think hard enough. It was so wet I poured out a decilitre of water from one of my shoes at one point. My mum got the worst flu she’s had in a decade. I kept wishing I’d gotten it instead, at least I would’ve had a reason to stay in bed.
March
In 2012 I had promised myself to be in a better place in my life when my next birthday comes along. I had in fact sworn not to be in Finland during my birthday, vappu (1st of May), Midsummer’s or New Years.
So, I spent my birthday in Paris, getting elected youth president of this little European organisation I am sometimes connected with […] The sun was shining, and it was warm enough to walk around in only a dress. In the evening, a whole restaurant sang for me, and I could feel hope returning. A little ray of light was starting to show at the end of the tunnel, and this time it wasn’t a train.
End of March, I really felt I was beginning anew, or, as I put it in my first post when returning to the blog: I had finally reached the middle of nowhere.
April
Realising nothing will come to me however much I try to hurry it, I tried organising my unpainted canvas of the future. I really had no idea where to start, or what to do with all the thoughts twirling around in my head and heart. I longed for a weekend alone in the countryside, but when asking my sister if the road to Gerby is free from snow, she laughed out loud.
I decided to go to my other happy place instead: Amsterdam. There’s just something about that whole country that makes me genuinely happy. I don’t know if it’s the tulips or the stroopwafels or the funny language (to a Swedish-speaker, it’s extremely funny.. especially when you see the word Klantenservice everywhere, as klant in Swedish means.. well.. simpleton. moron. oaf.), but it never fails. And I exchanged vappu to Queen’s Day. Not a bad decision at all. Except that I unfortunately was too tired to enjoy it wholly this time.
May
Went more or less straight from the airport to Gerby. Found local rain in my sitting room. Called the neighbour and took a picture. Somehow I had been waiting for this, and I suddenly understood why January didn’t work out. The neighbour came, and when poking the ceiling, he turned the dripping spot into a shower. I sat down on my stairs. Laughing. Hysterically. Realised this indeed is the year when all my money will disappear, only it won’t go to living the good life in London. The house was squeaking and creaking with anguish and anger – one late evening I got enough of all the sounds and yelled at it something about the two of us being stuck in this together, does it look like this was my dream? To this day I still don’t know what was scarier, me acting out like that, or the house actually suddenly getting all quiet…
In the midst of all this, I finally came to the conclusion it was time to do something about the exhaustion I was feeling all the time. Had pretty much already self-diagnosed myself, and dragged my sorry behind to the doctor’s to get it confirmed. Hypothyroidism. It didn’t take more than a week with medication, and I could feel the cotton being removed from around my brain. The light at the end of the tunnel was brighter than ever.
June
During the first weekend of June I found myself in Moscow. Due to sudden changes in the programme, my friend and I saw more of the city than the rest of the group. The organisers constantly forgot to let us know they had changed meeting times and places… Thinking back, I’m finding it a bit suspicious.
My house got messier by the minute, I was somewhere in between who I used to be (the angry one) and who I was becoming (the happy one). The house and I had reached an understanding though, and we both decided to trust Bob the Builder.
Scared the summer would turn out as grey and rainy as the year before, I kept part three of my promise to myself and fled to the French Riviera for Midsummer’s. Lost my voice, burnt my back, and broke my toe.
But for some reason, I didn’t mind. For some reason, I recalled that feeling in Brussels in March. That evening when I was wearing a lime green wig, and by mistake squirted yellow fluorescent paint on a white wall. That evening when laughter returned to my life.
The light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a sun with a promise of a wonderful summer. My house was literally falling into pieces, and my broken toe kept me unfailingly seated in my lovely sun chair, with a heap of books on one side, and an iced coffee on the other. Come what may, right now life was quite awesome.
To be continued….
management by chia 