a boring but necessary year in sweden to cultivate my dreams

for as long as I can remember, I have had a very strong feeling about the word "DREAMS".
To listen to your dreams, and to follow your dreams. This made something inside me click.
Maybe I read it in a book when I was very young I don't know, maybe I felt it from inside me, I don't know.
I always did follow my dreams, too. They often included trying new things, travelling to new places, meeting certain people, fragrances, tastes and sounds.
I have written many lists with dreams to make true- and I am always pleasantly surprised when I, a few years later, find the lists, and see that I did make many of them come true.
The potential to live our dreams is much bigger than we think at the time when it is just a dream, just a thought, an impulse- a longing for an experience.

But something kept stopping me from living my dreams.
I had the courage, the strength and the will to follow my dreams- but I never quite managed to live them fully.
Something always stopped me and I bounced back to Sweden, to come and stay with my parents for a while, to work a job that I honestly don't consider a dream-job but which has provided me a lot of work and money.
I guess I never believed enough in myself, that I could do it, that I could live my dreams. I didn't think I was able, capable.
Maybe I felt guilty.
So I came back.
To Sweden, to stay with my parents, to work my ass of for while- and to write new dream-lists, that I later went out to follow.

But I kept coming back.
And I kept wondering why I kept coming back, to the same situation, to the same job, that I actually didn't like that much. It's not that I hated it, and in fact, it did support my situation- I had all the freedom in the world to work as much as I wanted, and to take off whenever I wanted. And my parents always welcomed me to stay for free. It was just so easy to come back for a while, to work my ass off, and then bounce off again in search of more dreams.

So I decided, a year ago, after coming back from an unsuccessful attempt to live a dream, that it was time to stay in Sweden for at least a year.
This time I was not allowed to take off and leave nothing behind. I was only allowed small, short trips for work, pleasure, holidays.
I got myself my first apartment in Sweden. For the first time, I payed a proper rent.
I decided it was time to see Sweden with grown-up eyes; not just those of a 20-something-young-person who wants adventure and is looking for herself.
This year was going to be the year when I decided what I actually, really, deeply wanted.
No escapes to something more interesting, no distractions, no leaving on an impulse because I was bored.
Just stay.
Here.
Now.
And watch life, here, watch myself, here.
And ask myself what I really, deeply, truly want.
What are my real, true DREAMS?

I tried to see it as building a real, steady bridge between Sweden, myself, and my dreams.
To define my dreams into a more steady form, to shape them and nurture them- not just escape to them away from Sweden, with no real ground, no preparation, no steadiness to support them.

It is very, very good for me to be here.
It is also very, very boring.
But nevermind.
That was kind of the point!
It is very interesting for me to discover that my personality is the way it is.
It wasn't just a 20-something-stage, where I wanted adventure and travel.
Actually, this IS who I am.
It is funny and interesting to discover who you really are, in a setting that is boring, dull, full of routine and everyday normality.
I observe myself in comparison to others, I observe myself in this life.
I compare myself to others the same age as me, I look at their lives, I ask them what they want, what they desire, and then I look at myself again, and I can define ME easier.
It is a discovery journey, to find myself, in an environment that provides aboslutely NO distraction for me. Not much else to do, than to focus on myself, actually.
I am very, very happy that there is a beautiful coastline around here.
I go there to feel, to feel the world. To hear the waves of existence, to put things into perspective. To not get completely lost in the tedious boredom of organised routine existence.

The inner rollercoaster that I have experienced is indescribable.
I have been so close to breakdown, I think I hit the wall about a thousand times, I have been in tears and in agony for hours and days and weeks over my life.
The impulse to get away, to go away, to fly away, has been so strong, and has sometimes taken me to extreme states. But I have kept watching it, and I have learnt so much about how my mind works, what its tactiques are. It really does not handle boredom very well, and it also does not handle challenges which go a bit deeper than just to the surface very well. It presents beautiful escape-routes whenever things get rough, and in the past, I always reacted to these beautiful images of faraway-beaches with no problems in the world- I actually, physically, went there.
I realised that the escape-tactiques of my mind, is also very close to who I am.
I am trying to learn to differentiate between what is really ME- as I love to travel, and am a traveller in my heart and soul- and when it is my mind trying to make me escape a present, difficult situation.

Boredom.
What happens if you put makeup only on one eye?
Here: the result.

I have such a strong feeling of life passing quickly.
That's the main reason for me wanting to live fast by working hard and shooting off to follow my dreams.
I have this very acute feeling of life's very fragile state. One second we are here, next second we could be gone, dead.
I don't know what is beyond life- no one really does, not even those who believe in reincarnation, we just don't know even though we desperately wish we do- and therefore I have this pressing urge to make the absolute most of this life, here and now.
Unfortunately it makes me miss the moment, sometimes. Or maybe I should say, often. (sad!!)
I am in a hurry to live because life is passing me by, so I am in a hurry to catch life and the moment... So I sometimes miss the moment.

Thank god for the beaches, honestly. They are my breathing-spaces, my escape, my little bubble of freedom. There is nothing more magnificent than that meeting of free-flowing water, with soft, white sand.

I feel the most alive when I am on the road. When in a small coffee place or bar filled with people living their lives. When I am an outsider, observing, and writing about all the sense bombardments that I am showered with.
This is my dream: to be on the road, to write and capture moments that I expereince. I feel so alive, so in tune, so connected- moving along in life, cutting through the different cultural and geographical spheres that us humans created, to cut right through all the illusions, and dance through all of life.
Dance, write, photograph, breathe, meet, smell, love... Move.

At times I have been so bored. Life in Sweden is not very impulsive. To meet friends, you usually plan ahead for weeks.
But it's my own fault. I bury myself in work, out of old habit, in order to make as much money as possible, in order to be able to leave and follow my dreams as soon as possible.
It was really hard for me to try and leave space to be able to be social, to breathe, to be here, in this moment, in Sweden. Really, really hard.
To be honest, I don't think I managed very well, to be in the moment, to leave free time for impulsive things to be allowed in.
But I guess I also liked to have the money.
I spent the first few months in my apartment with throwing away almost everything that I had accumulated during my life.
My stuff had been spread out in different basements and storage-spaces, and my grandmother's stuff had been saved for me.
So I moved in with a lot of boxes of old things, that I cleared out, bit by bit.
It felt so incredibly good to throw away old stuff, like clearing old karma, old memories, and making space.
I threw away a lot of my clothes, and I spent some money buying new stuff.
A simple wardrobe - yes - that's the world- simple. That's how I like it.
Not too much of anything, a few bits and pieces.
Not too many shoes, not too many bags.
Simple, clean, clear.
No clutter.
So I cleared away material things, and the more I cleared, the closer I could look at myself. I cleared away all the outer things that had been defining me in order for me to define ME. Really, really define ME, without the outer definitions.
My apartment was quite empty- a lot of space. No curtains, nothing on the walls or floors. I didn't buy anything, I didn't want anything around me.
Just clarity, space, pure surfaces, so that I could minimize the distractions, and see myself clearer, to see what it was INSIDE ME that was stopping me.
To know who my enemy really, truly was.

Throughout the years of travelling, I met many peole, who insisted that it is crucial to have one's own home. A place of refuge, one's own sanctuary, a place to have our base in, and keep our things in.
I realised quite soon, that the place I live in, does not have much significance to me. I feel at home wherever I am, really. It was never about the physical place of being.
My enemy was my own mind. There is the root of my problems of not being able to live my dreams.
The ego, throwing obstacles in my own path.
Isn't that a sad insight, to realise that I am MY OWN ENEMY?
That I am the one putting obstacles in my path, getting in my own way?
Stopping myself from living my dreams, making me come back again and again to a life that I don't really find that inspiring, lively, and enjoyable?
My mind keeps putting me in a self-created prison-like life.
But I never realised that, until I actually stopped myself, and had a very good look at the activity in my head, while being completely still.
A war was going on between my heart and my mind- my mind tried to escape this boredom, while my heart was intent on solving this bouncing-issue once and for all.
So I left the expensive apartment in Malmö and made my world even smaller, even more boring. I am renting a room in a friend's place; I walk to work in three minutes. I live in the same area that I grew up in. Can it get any more boring?
Less distraction could not be possible.
I pull the net around me even closer.
I force myself to look my enermy in the eyes.
And I struggle and fight, I cry and I try to escape.

I am happy and content to say, that my heart seems to be stronger than my mind.
I am working on things I never thought I would get close to solving, things I had accepted as part of a problematic existence, which I had chosen again and again to escape from.
I tried to hide from myself by escaping myself, but I understood that in this way, I would never be able to live my dreams.
Complete freedom comes only when we are completely free from our own mind.
OUR OWN WORST ENERMY IS USUALLY...OURSELVES.
If we get to know its tactiques closely, if we study them and observe them, then we can learn to peacefully fight them.
We all have different issues. Personalized, individualized issues, all unique.
I have mine, you have yours.
We need to get to know them well.

Become peaceful warriors.
Heart conquers all.
Heart knows everything.
In our heart is written our dreams.
When we can live our dreams, we are living our own lives, free from our minds.
It takes time, courage, hard work.
This has been the longest year of my life, and I have many times lost the sense of purpose about it. But I'm still here....

...I am determined, to have the courage to LIVE MY DREAMS, DON'T DREAM MY LIFE.