✖ 27th birthday well spent | Levi, Finland

✖ 27th birthday well spent | Levi, Finland

Monday 7 February 2022

Apparently, this has become an annual thing now to travel to Lapland for my birthday. I recently turned 27 and I'm happy to say that I've achieved the age after I no longer get older. As far as anyone is concerned, I'll always be a twenty-seven-year-old. Period.

If the last year's trip to Pyhätunturi was purely magical, I can assure you that the magic was far away from Levi. Okay, okay, I got to see the Northern Lights (fucken finally) and I got to go snowboarding, went on top of Levitunturi, and witnessed one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen.

But apart from that, magic was far away from Levi.

I think it's time to let you all know that I'm a very accident-prone person. It's become a thing to go and practice a couple of down slides with a snowboard on the kid's part of the hill. You know, just to be reminded how that thing works on your feet. I'm not the one who does snowboarding often [read: more than once a year] so a reminder is well needed. This time also reminded me how it feels to fall on your butt and use your hand to assist the fall.

On the very first day of snowboarding, on a second slide, I managed to fall on my butt so well that I also succeeded in twisting my left wrist, and even more than a week later, it is still reminding me of that.

I also found muscles that I didn't know a human body can contain and my legs look like I've gone through a paper shredder for some reason, at least if you count all the bruises.

Snowboarding is something I do enjoy when I manage to stay on top of it instead of falling on my butt. The weather was amazing but also freezing with -25°C temperatures. You can easily conclude what happens to atopic skin when it goes to full-mode winter very suddenly. That's correct! Eczema appears. Haven't had the courage to show my face anywhere during the whole week as the eczema is right below my eyes.

Long story short, I spent in total 100€ at the pharmacy during and after the trip. I also bought myself a t-shirt and a new hoodie, even though I'm on a spending ban. With all the voices in my head, we together decided that I deserved them after going through all that pain.

The pain most certainly did not end there! During our last day, we decided to climb over 750 steps on Levi's summit, and oh boy, the legs were shaky when we got down. It was worth it though, as we stumbled upon the most adorable reindeer on our way up. It was part of the Samí exhibition that was at Levi summit.

After all, the trip was worth all the pain and I'd do it again. It most certainly reminded me that age doesn't come alone. What is the most random thing that happened to you during your birthday?

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✖ self-created stockholm syndrome

✖ self-created stockholm syndrome

Sunday 6 February 2022

I’ve gone and decided to put the apartment that I deeply love on sale. The decision has been extremely tough. The apartment complex is having some renovations that will increase the cost of the living here and even though in its own way it is making the decision-making a bit easier, it still feels like the end of the world.

It’s kind of like having Stockholm syndrome and bear with me, whilst I write it out. While I have wonderful memories of watching my son grow into a blooming five-year-old I also have twice as many hurtful memories in this apartment. It feels like those hurtful memories are effin' up with my mental health. And while the healing is on me, I feel like I'm not able to heal here where I am now.

The divorce happened a couple of years ago. It was painful, even though all the warning signs were there and before I even knew it would happen I mentally started preparing myself for it. Since that, there has been moving in and out. So I moved back to the apartment we own together with the father of my son a bit over a year ago now. Since then, my mental health has gone into a massive downhill.

I made a bunch of progress with my mental health when I moved out. Even though there was still this weird hard-to-explain status but definitely going to end up in an official divorce kind of relationship going on, I felt like I was in charge of my own life and happiness for a little while. Even though my life was a mess and happiness was something I had no clue of its being.

I love the apartment, I love the memories it has.

But a new bathroom carpet and shower curtain with self-drawn boobs cannot fix all the times I've sat in that very same shower and cried away the panic attacks I've desperately wanted to hide due to a lack of empathy on the side of that person that was supposed to love me until the end of our days.

Painting over a greyish-green wall in the bedroom won't change all those times I didn't feel safe in my own body. And don't get me wrong, this is not a testimonial telling everyone how my ex-husband abused me. It's the realization that I beat myself to not staying true to my own beliefs. For bending my limits to feel loved or touched, and then crying about it in the bathroom later. Even the wall is now painted, every time I close my eyes on that very same bedroom all those times cross my mind and it's causing me a lot of distress ending up with insomnia.

Applying DC-fix on kitchen cupboards won't erase the moments of frustration and time spent having mental breakdowns on its floor.

Painting the living room walls won't change the atmosphere in the room, not at least in my mind. For outsiders, it may be a breathtaking new view.

Replacing every piece of furniture in the apartment with things I paid by myself for by myself is not going to change the atmosphere between its walls.

Bringing more greenery will only kill the plants, not make them stronger and healthier.

Do you believe in plants thriving in happy environments? I do. I've witnessed it by myself. Or perhaps, it's the windows facing the wrong way but please, let me have this.

Tomorrow, I will be contacting the real estate agent and putting things in motion. It is not healthy to hang on to something that is only slowly killing you. The apartment is not worth an emotionally broken owner. I deserve better, the apartment deserves better. It's time to move on.

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