the hardest thing I ever had to do is to walk away from someone I loved. and it’s almost sadly ironic that I once loved this person.

I promised myself I wouldn’t grant him this. but fuck it. I am changed because of all the things done, different now for the things I had to take, what I had to endure. awed by how much changed and like with all the things that ever have, fighting to ever acknowledge how much he changed my life. but things will never be the same. not in me. what’s done is done and and it’s sometimes sad how much I still carry with me. but I am living a chosen life that wouldn’t be so had I not been broken. things are better now and they will only continue to get better.

I can’t even remember how many yoga practices I’ve dedicated to letting go. how many deafeningly quiet skins I’ve spent crying and begging for myself to move on. to somehow come to peace with what’s been done. I’ve written it on little notes and carried them in my pocket. I’ve prayed on the altar. I’ve spoken it from mountain tops. I’ve looked everywhere to find peace to find something to spare me from it.

only time will.

it teaches you strength and self control. it makes you all old and mature and shit. it makes you jaded. I have joined that club. and makes you want to move out to montana and live alone in the wide open spaces. it makes you want to simply live. and fuck everything else…

so the child grows.

with a twinkle in my eye. without a grant to the person who caused this, I am the person who made it happen. the very person he hated and tried to brake. I am happy to report: she lives on strong and better than you ever dreamed possible, making more dreams come true that you could dream up. When you stand alone and scream out loud.. suddenly the people come out of the woodwork and you are forever amazed by how many came to scream and stand along side you. when you never asked.

i scream for you. i scream for this life and i scream to find love in so many places i never asked for it. thank you all for seeing me through. i owe you a life time of gratitude. i will always include you in my prayers and i wish i could share with you the summits i’ve seen. i’ve had my breath taken away so many times this year i wish i could give it to you. life is an amazing place and i send you all the love from my heart for all the things you love me for!    !!!   THANK YOU FOR WHO YOU ARE!

for a long time i’ve been of the opinion that it takes a year to really get your bearings straight in a new place, to really figure out if the place is right for you or not. i spent the past three days ice climbing and skiing and feel like i am already making quite a few friends and and starting to fill my calendar with all those things that make me excited to be alive.

i have learned one thing about myself that i consider to be a blessing and an amazing gift that makes me able to live a life of wonder. i’ve realized that no matter where i am at or what i am doing in my life i tend to give it my best. where ever i am at i am there. i am somehow able to live in the moment and consistently live my life with a universal approach that applies a mesmerizing sheen of beauty on everything. granted, life has it severe ups and downs, but i’ve quickly learned that i am the only person in charge of my happiness and similarly the only person that can kick myself out of my funk.

i have been taking care of myself since i was 18. it seems like an appropriate age to move out of your parents house. but i’ve realized its an early age to move across the globe from your support group. whether i want to or not, i’ve chosen a life where i have no family, no roots and always ultimately no one to call if things turn bad. or no one to call when i’m just tired of doing it all by myself. since i was 18, i haven’t had the luxury of having someone come bail me out when i fall.

i didn’t exactly plan that i would be thirty years old in a country without a single person who’d stand by my me without question. no family and no one who i could turn to with some kind of a promise that someone would lend a shoulder to lean on. sometimes i get so exhausted of doing it all alone. to have done it all alone for so many years.

somehow, i guess in my dreams, though i never really acknowledged it, i had thought that maybe by now i would have a husband, a home and a family. as ridiculous as it sounds, i didn’t realize i even wanted any of those things until lately. and now i find myself pretty much singled out from all the wonderful people who got their shot at it. its like the party ended, we missed the last call, the lights came on and i was left blinking in the brightness.  suddenly realizing everyone else had left with their partnes and i was left standing in the room with a handful of people who never found their place either and now we’re pulling straws.

i am also so far from allowing someone in my life, that i am very skeptic about ever accomplishing that dream of a family. and the fucked up part about that is that it’s the only dream i have in life, that i have absolutely no control over. i can’t make someone fall in love with me much like i cannot make myself fall in love with someone else. more than anything i think i am so emotionally injured, that i am far from letting anyone in my life, in any timely fashion, to ever make that dream come true.

i think maybe it has ultimately rendered me to become the awful combination of being so independent that no one can really ever become a part of my life or me theirs and at the same time so exhausted of always taking care of myself and having no one in my life who’d kep me safe or want to take care of me. I can take care of so much, i always do. but who watches out for me? my family resides across the globe and i have no one to turn to other than at the other end of the phone line.

well then. i just made a note of the fact that i haven’t allowed myself to feel for someone in a while. i have been horrified to allow myself to actually fall for someone, or even like someone, in the sheer fear of being hurt again. without really being aware of it. i’ve known that the impact of events past changed my life for good but periodically i’m slightly stunned by just how much has really changed and how something like that can really devastate a person who is seemingly so strong and stubborn to the outside world. maybe that strength just pissed him off more so he did the things he did, just to try to break my spirit. well he did a pretty thorough job, but maybe i did need the learning lesson? but like always it just pissed me off and i refused to settle down and take it. refused to be a victim of his abuse. regardless, life is better, i am better, my relationships are better and i am finding even more joy that i already knew was possible. hmm, how much happier can a person keep on getting?

does that mean i’m manic? from misery straight to the top again? or does it just mean that i am capable of kicking my own ass back up and force myself to deal with it, how ever it may be. or does it mean that i actually just shut myself off emotionally, because it was easier (or better?) for my emotional health?

i felt this funny feeling that i haven’t felt in a long time, found myself horrified and trying to think of things to do to stop it quick. suddenly i remembered the roller coaster of feelings that immediately reminded me of the pain when someone is shamelessly ripping you apart. somehow now, having that funny feeling in my chest is directly linked to the pain. something that should normally make you happy and excited now keeps me awake at night. scared. my first reaction is to end it quick, cut the ties, stop hoping for anything, stop hoping that i could care for someone or someone would want to love me just for how i am . that simply i was even capable of allowing myself to fall in love again. in some distant future. i haven’t dared to dream of such things. still don’t.

sissy.

my life is a constant testament that you are the architect of your own life. especially if you want it bad enough. you can also change yourself and adjust to any change if you are willing. change is what keeps me vibrant. i think i am getting older as i find aspirations to stay put, live a simple life. nah, in reality the only reason why i want a somewhat steadier existence is so that i can be setup to run off to have adventures any given time. i worked to arrange my life to facilitate such need.

someone recently was curious about my lifestyle change and couldn’t believe that i wanted to move to montana so i could lead a quieter life. well, not really quieter, just arranged for easier summits and explorations. arranged for more joy. ha.

to be honest, my last years in Portland i considered my life to be easy and simple and i loved it. no more hectic schedule running from class to work, writing papers, doing homework and completing projects. got me a nine to five office job with mountains in between. most people thought i was crazy though. my so-called relaxed weekends included rafting, climbs, ski trips, kayak trips, moutain bikes, you name it, i would try to pack it all in. always scheaming for the next big adventure was the only thing that (barely) kept me seated in my office through the week.

someone once said that calendar of mine is like a chastity belt;
hard to get into, but really fun once you do.

it is what puts a ripping smile to my face and the only way i know how to live. i moved to montana so that i wouldn’t have to travel away from home every single weekend just to get my kicks. still happens but just not so much and not so far… i like my home, i like my town and the mountains around it.

bring it.

my mom called last monday and gave me the news. when i heard her stalling on the other end of the line and quietly asking me i’d heard yet, my hands started shaking and my body started convulsing in horror of what news she had called to deliver. something had happened, someone had died.

she delivered the news with the quiet choking in her voice that echoed the pain she was enduring in keeping the family together and delivering support to those in need while she desperately needed it herself. her mother was on her death bed, waiting to be sent off. in the mean while, the same day, my brother’s two month old baby had been retrieved to intensive care due to sudden discovery of Leukemia. in the mean time my dad was sailing the high seas somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, far out of range.

i have made my life very complicated at some point. i have wondered about my life decisions more lately as i have gotten older. for years i somehow thought i would grow out of this and i would happily move back to Finland to share a life with my family and be there to support them when they needed someone to lean on. i’m in agony over the simple truth that my family is growing up and growing older and i am missing the best part of their lives by choosing to live half way across the globe. i have tried to make myself to move back to Finland, or at least moving closer somewhere in Europe. but when ever the reality of moving away from the northwest corner of the united states came calling, i have always found myself tucking tail and anchoring down. i have come to realize that i can’t, don’t want to, live my life any other way that how i am now, but at the same time live in constant torment over the distance i have put between myself and my family.

i have a wonderful family that i miss and love very much. i would hope to someday have a travel fund set a side that would allow me to come to their aid when ever something rough happened.

the hardest thing about receiving these news from anyone in your family is hearing the pain in their voice and knowing how badly they just need someone to stand by them, just to see them through. and i can’t help the fact that i feel like i am deserting my family by not being able to do absolutely anything, but to hold the phone and try to send them my blessings. it makes me feel horribly helpless and guilty. what will i do when the person i love the most in this world gets older and it’s her turn to receive support from her family? not the mention how angry i will be with myself that i never got to share my life with my mother? i know they never hold it against me and my mother, most of all, wants me to be happy. and she knows i am.

I am here and this is me. I have never considered blogging in the past, feeling like it was for folks who had a lot more to say to the world than I ever would. or should.

but things change, and lately I have actually felt the urge to tell a story, just send it out there, regardless if anyone ever read it, if anyone ever heard me roar. and realized I didn’t want to make it as public and directly traceable to me as facebook.

the truth is that I’ve lived a colorful life already despite my young age of thirty (*gasp* I still think I’m young) and I really wished I could tell someone about it, tell myself about it. I wanted to use this blog more as a digital diary for myself, my personal shrink that I can talk to and tell about my worries, fears, doubts and how I got to where I am now.

around the age of thirteen it dawned on me that I could actually make my life be what ever I wanted it to be and it’s been a roller coaster ride ever since. I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I can look back in awe that I,

a) made it through in one piece,
b) learned something from it, or not,
c) wish that I could share without judgment from those who know me closely and
d) makes me wonder if the outcome of those events has rendered me to be a good person or if I should fight some of those instincts and habits.

lately I have come to re-evaluate my life and it’s course, who I have become as a person and seriously wondering if I am making the right decisions. if I really am the person I think I am, and if the person I think I am is, in fact, a good one, or if I am failing myself (and others) in many fronts.

where I am now is actually another one of my dreams I thought up after a pretty devastating life event that made me seriously begin to re-evaluate the people I have surrounded myself with and realign my standards on how a person should ever be treated. how I should be treated! I think this event, has ultimately rendered me to become a better person, gain better understanding to seeing people for who they truly are and protect myself and loved ones from harm. at the same time, realizing that those who do love me and those who I love, deserve to be told what wonderful people they are and deserve to be loved openly the same way I wish I could/should be loved.

nothing in me thinks I deserve or want intimate love of another anymore, but I know it exists. while I have become jaded and quite frankly, horrified, to imagine someone in my life again that would have some greater effect on my state of mind or my well being, with ever grated amplitude I disperse love and joy onto those around me without reserve. lately, I’ve come to realize how utterly horrified I am by the though of needing to explain my thoughts, feelings or actions to another. I am utterly repulsed by the idea of being held accountable for my life through someone else’s eyes. I refuse to, from this day forward, to make a single apology or excuse for who I am and why I want to climb a mountain or run of to go skiing.

and it seems to be this fact of sincere happiness and love that I am doubting myself for. through complete and gut wrenching heart brake, falling worse than I ever thought possible and then picking myself back up again, I discovered that I am as strong as I always knew myself to be, finally finding happiness in life again. I am bursting with this sincere happiness because only a year ago I had considered compromising my own life because it was the only thing I could think of doing to stop the pain. not that I ever actually would, but I did think of it. a lot. I’d like to think of myself as better than that, though, and believe that the cause of my agony would never deserve that from me. i wouldn’t grant anyone that. ever.

it took nine summits to enable me to stand still for a moment with out acknowledging the nagging, and at times unbearable, pain in my chest. every summit put me further away from the hurt and brought me closer to me. each summit became harder to attain as I was getting better. i was healing through the blinding whiteness and the deafening silence of the mountains. it was the only thing I knew that no-one could take away from me and the mountains would never judge me. with loving care they each allowed me to stand on their summits without a fight. they were the one thing I could trust, they were always just what they appeared to be. I understood them and they were my haven of serenity and security.

finally about two months ago that tight constricting pain in my chest unclenched and I could breathe again. finally I am closer to finding peace. and I think this is where the journey begins and I get to start over again. not that I ever wanted to, but in order to simply breathe, I left a lot of friends behind and went to do what I so selfishly wanted to do. and that is to live in montana, in the quiet, wide open spaces and BREATHE.