Contentment at the end of my timeline

Every New Years I am summing the old year up at the end of my journal and writing words of ahead before the new year coming. The aheads are largely depending on the experiences from the year just passed and the state of mind it has put me in.

2017 was an administrative year. I have taken care of a lot of practical matters in my life that needed to be done, which is good. Some of them has been pretty taxing on me, but life has spared me catastrophes of different sizes this year, for which I am truly grateful.

2018 I am entering the new year in a place I am not that familiar with and can not quite put my finger on. Or find the right words for. It might be a new level of acceptance. There is a fine line tough between acceptance and giving in. Resignation. But can giving in and resignation also be contentedness?

It’s five years now since my back problems turned handicapping to the extent that I can't take care of myself practically. Since then I am relying on every day assistance from society and I am so lucky to be living in Sweden where such help is available. I am fighting for it though. Right now my case is up for scrutiny and I don’t know where that is going. But for now I have the aid I need.

I am also so lucky to have the very best help you can find. Civil Care, an Umeå company always going that extra mile for me, personal oftentimes becoming dear friends and like family to me. Civil Care is my life savor.

During these years my world has become a lot smaller of course. I am still singing in my choir during periods when my back can take it, but other than that my life pretty much is treatments of different kinds. And daily routines. 

I haven’t been to the movies  and I can’t go to concerts or out for dinner, except in very rare occasions and with a lot of assistance. I can’t travel. During these five years I have been in Skellefteå two hours north of Umeå twice, and to my childhood small town Nordmaling 45 minutes south of here a number of times. And oh, I have spent Midsummer’s Eve at the island Norrbyskär with my family a couple of times. That’s my world.

Facebook keeps informing me it’s a bigger world out there. I see friends and family frequently traveling wide and far. That used to hurt a lot and sometimes it still does. But often it’s just flickering by. I note it, but not so much more. I am wondering if my current restricted life has become normalized and internalized to the degree that my longing for something more is gone? Or if it’s a self preservation to not wish for something I know I can’t have?

I think the fact that I let go of my Seattle last year is a player here. Cleaning out my storage and getting rid of my car was finally giving up my dream of Seattle such it was. My dream of a future there, but also my hope of returning one last time. I am quite sure that won’t happen. Seattle is now a story in past tense. The Emerald City is now in my book of memories.

I don’t know, but it might be that process turned most everything including dreams, hopes and will power in an outer world to a past tense. Something is different.

I feel like I am at the end of my time line. I am not dying, that I know of. I don’t feel like it’s the end of my days. There is no drama here, on the contrary. I just feel like it is over. And that’s a quite place. 

I am standing at the last spot of my time line and somehow it is located in my mother’s see of lupins here at the end of the road. That’s where I am and that’s where I will be. It’s sunny and pleasant. I am running my little queendom in a soft voice. Waiting patiently for plumbers and electricians. You can’t be here next week? No worries, maybe next year? 

Sometimes someone is stopping by to say hello. I am offering them a Stoltergården Arnold Palmer. My neighbor Gunnar delivers his wife Ondina’s eggs every Sunday. I am walking a few steps on my road or up the fields. The village kids try to climb the treehouse Kojan where they are not allowed because it’s really high up and dangerous. Once in a while I write a song to put in my drawer. My adorable kitten Sorella is scouting for breakfast at the bank of a ditch.

That’s pretty much it. And I don’t wish for anything more. It’s peaceful. A former girlfriend of one of my sons and I exchanged Messenger greetings before Christmas. She said “I miss you and your world”. It was interesting. I wondered what she saw as my world. Maybe it was this.

Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. This might just be a phase. And if it’s not, for now it seems like a pretty good place to be in.