My story

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was born in Sweden and grew up in the countryside around Southern Finland. Her place of residence changed so frequently that she never really felt settled down to any one landscape, house or road. The best and safest place in the world was her own bed, which always existed – in some form in every home. The girl’s family was hardworking but poor. The girl felt helpless and worthless. Nothing or no object with a price tag was for her. But she could dig clay from the bank of the pond and made it into pots. She could build Fairytale mini-gardens in a pile of sand from stones and blueberry twigs. In wintertime, the snow provided her abundant material for snow sculptures.

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A small blue-covered checkered notebook – it was the best! Its empty pages cried out for poems, which the girl wrote in the notebook with a pencil while lying on a mossy mat in the forest.

 

The girl loved books. All books. Even textbooks. So it was no wonder that she graduated at the top of her class. Childhood had taught her not only to work, but also to invest in her studies. The girl felt that it was the only way to a better life.

 

Bigger dreams pointed elsewhere, but life decided to offer the girl a degree, a job and staying afloat. It also offered marriage, mortgage and children. Secretariat. Store manager. Entrepreneurship in a technical field. A long time passed in the girl's life, perhaps too long, when the whirlwind of life offered only the same mantra day after day: to work, home, sleep. When the girl noticed that she was no longer smiling, she dug out paper, scissors - and instead of a stone, a lot of stamps from the drawer. Creative papercrafts brought more oxygen to life and joy returned.

 

The thought also returned: What if?

 

The answer yes turned the girl into an adult student. Her studies were in danger of being interrupted when everything suddenly changed. The girl's husband died on a cold autumn night. Shock, grief, funeral. Change of profession, carrying the urn, writing the will. When all the tatters of life seemed to have finally found a glimmer of order, her body gave up. After all, it had managed to carry the girl across all the chasms. Exhaustion put everything on hold.

 

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