Forward, always forward. Onward, always up.
The extraordinary thing about time is that it is always relative. We thing we have found a way of measuring it in seconds, hours, days and years, yet sometimes a second can last an hour and a year go by in a week. Our minds and souls do not always agree with the set standards. Our feelings are rarely, if ever, rational.
In three days it will be exactly one year since I moved to Ireland from Sweden. It has been the most demanding, developing, educational, maturing, responsible, (a)lonely, independent and, yes, best year of my life. No, it hasn't always been easy. Yes, I have wished many a time for the safety and easy life of home. But when I have been overwhelmed with homesickness, I have thought of how much I longed to leave Sweden and the mundanity of not having anything to occupy myself with, which was my reality the last few months before I left. It was my own choice to leave. It was my own choice to come.
It is hard to say if my expectations have been fulfilled. I don't think I knew initially what to expect at all, something I often find to be the wisest way to approach most aspects of life. The more hopes and expectations one has, the greater the risk of disappointment. I got a job almost directly, one that I have left just a few days ago. And despite it not being perfect in many ways, I learned an awful lot about how the real world works... and had some wonderful experiences in travelling. After first living in a room in a house owned by a good friend, and then sharing a room in a very run-down house with another friend, I finally found the perfect place to live. It wasn't until I moved into my bedsit in July that I truly felt that I had a home.
The one thing that I have learnt, and that I might have been able to be without, despite it probably being a very healthy experience, is the loneliness. Having grown up in a close-knit family and always been involved in a number of activities as well as school of course, there has always been company there when I needed it. Now, not so. It is hard to make proper friends when the people you get close to leave all the time. The only person I have become close friends with left in July. Considering how much time I still spend on my own, it is strange that I don't feel lonelier more often than I do. I have been blessed with the ability to enjoy my own company, but there are limits even to that ability.
I find it strange to think that a year ago I was still hoping and planning to attend college here from this year. I truly believed that it would be possible. I never planned to take more than one gap-year. My second year is almost halfway through, and I almost have a date for when I must leave this country that I regard as my home, despite all its complications. In a year's time I will be in Copenhagen, studying something that will probably turn out to be Economics. I find it hard to accept this knowledge that I will leave, albeit next summer is still far away.
So. How to sum up this year? Everything has been in superlatives. Work, independence, singing (I owe the choir so much. It it weren't for that outlet, I doubt I would still be here), travel, waiting for buses and trains, loneliness, happiness, moving, writing, guitaring, photography, music, sharing... Above all, I have grown up an incredible lot. At 19 years old, I have supported myself in a foreign country for a year; solved my own problems, found work and a home, and having hardly anything to fall back upon. And whichever way the future turn out, wherever I end up living and whatever I end up doing, I know I will look back on this time as something positive. A life changing experience.
A journey...
In three days it will be exactly one year since I moved to Ireland from Sweden. It has been the most demanding, developing, educational, maturing, responsible, (a)lonely, independent and, yes, best year of my life. No, it hasn't always been easy. Yes, I have wished many a time for the safety and easy life of home. But when I have been overwhelmed with homesickness, I have thought of how much I longed to leave Sweden and the mundanity of not having anything to occupy myself with, which was my reality the last few months before I left. It was my own choice to leave. It was my own choice to come.
It is hard to say if my expectations have been fulfilled. I don't think I knew initially what to expect at all, something I often find to be the wisest way to approach most aspects of life. The more hopes and expectations one has, the greater the risk of disappointment. I got a job almost directly, one that I have left just a few days ago. And despite it not being perfect in many ways, I learned an awful lot about how the real world works... and had some wonderful experiences in travelling. After first living in a room in a house owned by a good friend, and then sharing a room in a very run-down house with another friend, I finally found the perfect place to live. It wasn't until I moved into my bedsit in July that I truly felt that I had a home.
The one thing that I have learnt, and that I might have been able to be without, despite it probably being a very healthy experience, is the loneliness. Having grown up in a close-knit family and always been involved in a number of activities as well as school of course, there has always been company there when I needed it. Now, not so. It is hard to make proper friends when the people you get close to leave all the time. The only person I have become close friends with left in July. Considering how much time I still spend on my own, it is strange that I don't feel lonelier more often than I do. I have been blessed with the ability to enjoy my own company, but there are limits even to that ability.
I find it strange to think that a year ago I was still hoping and planning to attend college here from this year. I truly believed that it would be possible. I never planned to take more than one gap-year. My second year is almost halfway through, and I almost have a date for when I must leave this country that I regard as my home, despite all its complications. In a year's time I will be in Copenhagen, studying something that will probably turn out to be Economics. I find it hard to accept this knowledge that I will leave, albeit next summer is still far away.
So. How to sum up this year? Everything has been in superlatives. Work, independence, singing (I owe the choir so much. It it weren't for that outlet, I doubt I would still be here), travel, waiting for buses and trains, loneliness, happiness, moving, writing, guitaring, photography, music, sharing... Above all, I have grown up an incredible lot. At 19 years old, I have supported myself in a foreign country for a year; solved my own problems, found work and a home, and having hardly anything to fall back upon. And whichever way the future turn out, wherever I end up living and whatever I end up doing, I know I will look back on this time as something positive. A life changing experience.
A journey...