Found this old thing in my notes
There is no definite way to cope
Or as it says so perfectly ‘point of hope’
There’s no way to see the future
Or to look behind for its all such a blur
And what of ones ‘prospects in life’?
Become a mom, a sister, a wife?
But if independence is all u long for
Then the thought of being a possession is something to mourn for
How can one say that’s what you should do?
When for you being content is somewhat of a breakthrough.
Shining Spirit
Aching limbs that break in feathers
Signs of mourning clear in the future
Cold stiff hands broken and weathered
Tempestuous clouds calling her name
The rough of the dirt hard against her eyes
The smell of last night lingering within
Her splitting seams and long failing tries
And everything else that seems to fall short
These are the days of her youth
These are the times she shines
pictures that I’m excited about from simones wedding.. a few will make it on to the website :)
i hate that this has turned into a downer of a blog.. oh well.
this weekend has just been filled with instances of missing sweden, to generalize. and it’s been unexpected and frustrating and just hard. today at the meeting a woman commented, not american, and it took me a second to figure out if she was swedish or not. i had thoughts of walking over to her and speaking swedish and it made me so happy and sad at the same time.. turns out she was german, sorry. needless to say, i was disappointed. i guess the old ‘dont know what you had till its gone’ is ringing a bit true at the moment. which is just.. weird to me. but it just proves so much to me too, that my unhappiness is not tied to where i live. its attached to me, at the hip, in sailers knots. thats where its been this whole time. i guess i was just looking for a way out. although, all that being said, i definitely needed to move. i don’t doubt that. i just have been so overwhelmed with sadness and missing my home there. i dont know what it is exactly, or why, but its strong. everything makes me cry. everything reminds me of my old life. im such a conflicted being, not being able to handle four months alone after a change, but not being able to handle where i was before either. i guess this is the point where you feel like throwing in the towel in general and just living in the middle of the forest eating deer and flowers. i suppose this is it. this is the time in my life where its up to me. its my choice.
ive been having this weird .. vision? .. tonight. i can see my body standing at a coastal cliff. theres a bridge in front of me, its long and its very windy. i cant see the end or even the other side of land, its just a bridge into clouds. im standing at the beginning of it, alone, and my hair is blowing something crazy. its cloudy and very dismal out. theres nothing or anyone else around. i cant go back, theres nothing there. i cant go forward because theres nothing there either without walking over this bridge. im stuck. i have to cross the bridge. i have to cross over. or i have to stand still. and i guess that just isn’t an option.
grown up
Theres a phone call from your friend of 13 years that you grew up with and she is pregnant and starting a family.
Looking at the calendar your reminded of the fact that your missing a best friends wedding. Why? Because of money.
I guess this is the first time I’ve really felt that strange emptiness of watching your friends grow in very specific ways in their lives and not being able to help feeling left behind and directionless. Where is my life going, exactly? Am I just too hard on myself?
I suppose when things like these happen I can’t help but to make it slightly about myself. Because as happy as I am about both of these and how much I love them immensely, we are all selfish I guess. It’s weird because I don’t have a strong desire to start a family or get married, but when the people you grew up with, literally or emotionally, start doing these things it makes you wonder what’s wrong with you for not wanting it too, I guess. For not dating every boy you meet, for not marrying the guy your mom pushes on you, and for not being interested in the things everyone else is. I sometimes (most times) wonder why I have this constant battle inside of being able to physically stay still while inside all I want to do is keep moving. Maybe that’s why I lasted as long as I did in Sweden, because I got to travel so much. I feel this incredible urge to move again and I just got here.
My skin feels restless. Everything happens for a reason. I’m tired of being poor.
Stepping foot in the Austin airport just felt so… exciting! And in so many different ways. I felt this overwhelming sense of happiness and gratitude that I’m here and that this is my airport now. That just because I’m in between these walls doesn’t mean that I’m not coming back, that more than likely I will be walking these floors a lot. And even more so than all that, it made me reminisce on my first AND second (!!!) time here and how lovely and special these stupid tile floors are to me. Security had me choked up! Airports really seem to spike my emotions and today it was a good one :) I just have such a love for this place and town that honestly, and I don’t see how this wasn’t painfully obvious to me before, I could never ever see myself moving away or leaving. Not for a long time. Just the fact that I’m going to be away for a whole weekend saddens my heart a bit and I know I will be itching to get back to this strangely southern home of mine.
Here’s to good decisions and following your heart in an extremely healthy and happy way.
Sweden and such
It didn’t take me long. I’ve been having moments of nostalgia thinking of Sweden. More specifically, some of the things I would do there, and interestingly it’s pretty much exactly what I expected to miss. Things and people. Break it down, Ms Haley!
Walking, or more frequently, biking to the nearest cafe with the wind in my hair (haha) and being pretty much guaranteed a fantastic cup of coffee no matter the place or time or cafe. People sitting for hours at their tables talking and not caring if they’re holding up that space for too long, reveling in that time spent with whoever they were with. I want meeting and talking over a hot drink to be a staple in my day to day again. I need to incorporate it here, I said I would but I haven’t yet. I have faith though :) The cozy cafe atmosphere for that sort of thing I have yet to really find here, although I’ve only just scratched the surface so..
Speaking of bikes and walking. I NEED to start biking again. I miss it terribly, the moment I can afford to buy a bike I’m gonna get one and stick it downtown and just go for bike rides around the city and do the things I used to with it. I wish I could bike to work and town but I will take what I can right now! So I guess what I’m saying is the feeling of being outside walking and on a bicycle is unparalleled to all other modes of transport, for the most part, and I only ever experienced that fully living in Malmö. So they are closely related in my mind.
And last, yet most important, there are some people that I left behind that I can’t imagine how it will be to be away from long term. I grew up and grew to love a few wonderful human beings there and they will always be with me. I really miss you.
“Austin is like being on vacation all the time”. A 9 year old in the hall said that to me at my first meeting here. I can’t help but to agree with her. Austin is pretty great. It seems like it possesses whatever you need. Whether its drinking wine in the country or walking through fields of green or thru streams of water barefoot or dancing and riding an electric bull or pioneering and improving your spiritual health or even losing weight and getting fit. As strange as it is to put all those in the same sentence, it’s so true. It can do for you whatever you need it to. And I think that’s very special! There is so much offered here it’s hard to know where to start.
I guess to me the biggest difference, or rather a difference that means the most to me right now, is that when I first moved to Malmö 3 years ago I was asked by most of whom I met “why did you choose Sweden? Why did you move here?” insinuating that i’d almost made a mistake, shedding light on their lack of appreciation and joy for where they lived. They couldn’t see why, with so many other options, I would choose to live THERE. Even throughout the few years it kept coming up. I thought it was a little strange but I was so excited to have moved to Europe I couldn’t give a farts butt what they thought, I was gonna love it there if it was the last thing I did!!
So now, having that to compare it to, moving to Austin has been the complete opposite. Every single person I’ve met has been nothing but ridiculous with how much they love it here. Just like that little girl, it’s been ‘Austin is THE best place to live! Your gonna love it here! We wouldn’t live anywhere else!’ .. You get the idea. So I guess I just find it interesting that you can have a people that absolutely love where they live and then have another group of people that most of what they talk about is leaving. Granted, I don’t speak for all Swedish folk, nor all austinites. But it was just a feeling I got. I suppose I needed somewhere that people were excited to be, and I found it here.
I guess I learned how to really be able to connect with myself and see myself for who I really was in Sweden. I went through some of the toughest of toughs and I was able to come out of it breathing and even more than that, capable of making such a drastic change by myself like moving here. I believe its safe to say Sweden prepared me for the rest of my adult life and I think that’s also very special.
What will Austin hold?
