Elle Vampa

tick
the pendulum swings
towards
personal prosperity
and
my heart beats
nothing but
smiles

tock
no time for lingering
rushing
pauses are forgotten
as
the swing back
hits equally
harsh

continuous motion
nothing to grasp
stability just out of touch

however
I can only do so much

Elle Vampa

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I haven’t blogged for a few weeks, which is partly due to being busy (sorry), partly due to the flu (WHY!?), and partly due to Sweden (jättebra!).

Because by visiting this fine and gorgeous massive forest producer, I ticked off a very nice personal goal, if I do say so myself: I visited the whole of Scandinavia.

Go me! 💪

Even more so, I managed to order an ice-cream in my not-so-fine Swedish and a coffee in my much-worse-than-anything-fine Swedish (which just goes to prove one should always look up alternatives for soy milk in case they don’t have it. Nevertheless, that oat-milked-coffee tasted darn fine!).

For those of you good at deduction: yes. I did end up with a minor case of diarrhoea after the aforementioned ice cream. But, you know, sometimes it’s worth it. I was just happy to have put my little accumulated DuoLingo-Swedish into practice successfully.

(Maybe I didn’t necessarily needed to enjoy it twice, but nobody likes a sourpuss so let’s just move on.)

Anyway, “why the dark poem, Elle?”

Because while in Sweden, I started to doubt my sanity.

During the extended, extraordinarily long days (the sun only going down for a few hours), everything seemed flawless.

Even the weather was perfection put into practice: 24 centigrade, sunny, with a light breeze. Amen!

The excursions were outside of my comfort zone, but comfortable enough not to traumatize me like some recent experiences in a TV studio did.

In other words: I was having the time of my life!

But why was I spending my nights and early mornings feeling miserable, pondering whether or not the woman I had seen in pictures others took of me was pretty enough? Smart enough? Good enough to even be here on this planet?

I thought I’d moved on from all that…

Then, one night as the clock struck midnight (or maybe more like 2 am), it hit me: it’s the pendulum of life (what, you thought I made that up? No, it’s hermetic philosophy!).

With every swing forward, it also moves backward, and vice versa. The pendulum swings indefinitely.

It was, however and unfortunately, swinging in a rapid speed, causing my mental duality.

I was stepping out of my comfort zone so often that, whenever possible, my mind would automatically take some steps back. Way way back. Back into feeling emotions I knew how to handle, because there was a time once where I was trapped in them.

Old habits…

As soon as my understanding of what was happening became better, I felt better, too.

But it wasn’t until our fine group of travellers had arrived back on national soil and we said our goodbyes, that I truly felt the pendulum’s swing slow down.

It happened without a second’s delay after someone uttered the magic words: “Elle, it was lovely to meet you, you are such a nice energy to be around.”

Sometimes, all we need is a gentle push.

Or well, sometimes that’s all our pendulum needs.