Daring to

Hola Readers,

It has been a while, I am considering to stop blogging actually. Only because I am not sure I wish to nor have the energy to share very much of what is going on on at my core at the moment. Some may say I have changed and closed up a bit more the past years and I am sure that is the truth. As I have said many times before I am a human and not perfect at all. When I get hurt I get upset and when people are mean I feel bad. It is a normal response to hold back in those times. I think everyone can identify with this. It is also just as normal to react, but I guess that is less accepted. The past 4 years has been strange health-wise and emotionally I had to go through a lot. I know I am not alone in this, in fact I am sure of it. I see that people in my life and those no longer inn it also have/are experienced the roller coaster, ups and downs and twirl-arounds. If I look at myself right now I think there are many things affecting me in the moment and many things I need to work on to handle them better. There will always be things one could improve. I try to listen more and not to get so upset when someone I love say something hurtful but I also need to dare to be myself and part of that is being emotional and set my boundaries. Toning it down once in a while does not hurt of course ;) 

I see and understand that some people may never like nor respect me. They are going through their own chapters and roller coasters and because of that find it hard to listen or show understanding. So I also realise that no matter what I do or how I act around such people it will never prove good enough. That is fine, I accepted that long ago and yet sometimes it comes at an even greater cost then one would think. Despite what some people may think or feel, I never intend to hurt or be mean back. If someone I am close to hurt me due to different reasons I expect nothing more than I am sorry before we move on. At least the people I am close to and have known for an odd few years.  Daring to love oneself despite what kind of hurtful things people might say or do is one hard task. I would be the first one to tell you. For years I lived with the feeling that I was worth less than a grain of sand blowing in the wind. A few broken ties later did not make it any easier and so I started writing to help me sort out my emotions and create new perspectives and life strategies. In the process I was hoping to help other people see how wonderful life and it´s journeys could be. I hoped that it would make some people feel less alone and less like an emotional freak as well. Cultural highlights and lows have also been important to share for me. I did not always understand why certain ways of life had to be so different and difficult to handle so I wrote about them to let people see how it was like to be an expat, a new one and perfectly imperfect in a strange place.

It is hard not question myself half the time. Slowly I am learning to stand for what I believe in and believe in that I just like everyone else deserve to be treated with respect. Hopefully this blog has not just been easy reading for you all the time, hopefully it challenged your way of thinking and helped you create an understanding of other people´s way of life and struggles. Sometimes the posts might have had you tare your hair with frustration and probably I did as well when writing them. It was because I could not always write about flower petals and the sun ;) Sometimes you might even had loved what I wrote about or felt the soreness of emotion pouring through my words and wanted to lean in and hug me. Sometimes you might have wanted to hug yourself after reading between the lines a story that was similar to your own...

It has been an interesting experience, being so open and honest. Yet after a lot of soul searching I am going to stop writing on the blog. I feel like I have shared enough now and it is time to spend my energy on something else.

I wish you all a wonderful and interesting journey. Thank you to all the people giving me their sweet advice and kind words in times when I needed them the most.

Over and out- The Viking;)

My Inspiration and the Hunger for Knowledge

Hola,

Despite the last months of pain, there are moments of great joy as well. This weekend for example, it was amazing and I had such a colourful and lovely warm weekend with the best man I ever met. He has seen how difficult the past months have been for me and I think he just wanted to make me forget about it for a while and so Saturday I woke up to a tidy and clean house and a bf that held a tray of fresh made omelette and coffee and greens for me. Smiling and just a tad disappointed that he did not reach the bedroom with the tray before I had woken up. Because he is away for studies next week he had planned to spend as much time with me as possible. A year after we started dating I am still head over heals with this kind and gentle and smart human being. We visited my dad and youngest brother and played games and we visited my boyfriends parents as well. Eating vegetarian pizza and just chilling with family was very nice. Then today before he left we went for a walk and met up with my brother and played masterminds before my bf had to head to Bergen. 

I cannot say it enough how much I love him and keep falling more and more in love with this guy. We understand each other most of the time and when we do not we talk about it and sort things out. He is very supportive and I am learning to be more supportive as a partner as well with him. Everyday we are learning new things about the other person. I like that a lot.

After he left for Bergen I lit up the fireplace and found my study spot in the couch and started reading about foster-care pedagogic modules for next year. It was very interesting and again I got weak and ordered a book about how different cultures understand and act upon learning and problematic behaviours in children. It is on days like these that I get inspired to read and to learn more, I get focused and driven when I am in the zone. I decided yesterday already that I would spend the evening reading about next years modules and learn some basic concepts in the first and most central module. I think by next week I will look upon module nr 2.

Being with someone who reads and has a hunger for knowledge inspires me. He is the kind of person I would like to be more like. With him I feel more driven to get there and to get started on my new degree and the great thing about us is that were I am weak he is strong. And where he is weak I am strong so we help each other to become better in things we are not so good at. This is how I know this relationship is healthy and although you cannot be certain in anything in this life I dare say I hope and think this is the man I am meant to be with the rest of my life. I need a man like him in my life! So I think this was the way things were meant to happen now. I had to be crushed and see how relationships with no talking about issues or the opposite where there was only conflicts and arguments were like before I met someone who was used to talk about issues and solve them as a team. More people should be like this. Maybe we are just stupidly in love with heart-shaped pink glasses on and that is why it now seems so simple. If that is the case, I hope those glasses are glued on us for the rest of our lives! When my struggles are real, he is the one person to bring my soul joy and the one person who makes me feel like a ok humanbeing. When I am stuck, he inspires me to let my hair down and get unstuck. This is something I think I did not have in the past. But without my past I would not have learned enough to be with him and so with all the scars I have there are lessons. I am a slow learner when it comes to these things but I learn. This year has been amazing in the lines of love, learning and I am pleased to see that a lot of new knowledge is to come and stimulate my grey cells yet again next year! :D 

                                                                                                        The 2 Vikings ;)

Priority until then is to keep the pink glasses on, mend my health, work my butt off and to read a lot. Somehow I think it will come together. It will be a hard but wonderful new year and it has for sure been a very interesting year that passed. 

I am a lucky Viking :D

xo

To Stay Alive

Hola,

Strange title for a post I know and it is a rather strange thing  to have to write about. Because there are times when I feel like I have to fight systems to stay alive and to get the help and support from doctors and employers that is needed, which should just work well in the first place. To have to defend seeing a doctor or go to the hospital should never be the case, ever. Yet in very many cases this is just what happens. The employer has no right to stop you from going to get the care your body needs to survive. Equally surprising to me is the lack of effort and knowledge in the healthcare system when it comes to really get in depth information from the patient and to use all elements in the system to give the most accurate diagnosis. Personally I am feeling the effect of this system on my body and I am forced into situations where I have to take stands and press ultimatums forward when really I am so tired and in so much agony I just want to give up and crawl into a soft black hole of duvet and hugs and never speak again. It is hard to be something I am not, a pressing, overbearing and complaining someone just to get basic rights met. Everywhere there are people who think they know what is wrong with you (especially at work) but for real they do not have a clue.

Right now a lot of things are finally happening after years of trying to get the correct diagnosis and  appropriate treatment I was entitled to all along. But my health has had to dive into one heck of a hole to get there. Right now there are not only kidney pain but also possible infections and internal  issues in the uterus as a result of a stupid mirena spiral that should have been removed long ago that a doctor insisted I keep to avoid too low iron levels. The pain in my abdomen went from bad to worse after the removal of the spiral and in 24 hours I have lost so much blood that I need anti bleeding medications and several antibiotics and pain relief. In one day I spent over 100 Eur on healthcare and about 6 boxes of medication. Strangely I feel that I came a long way today because now the doctor's alarm bells finally kicked inn and many things will happen ahead. Explaining where the pain was and about the extent of the bleeding was the only thing I managed to do today, had very little energy to do much more. If am honest I also felt pretty sorry for myself sitting there pale as a ghost and in constant agony. I got sent straight to the surgeon and he will see me again at the hospital in a few days. We have to see if the medications help at all the next few days. Talking about these things may be a good thing, because talking about bleeding and genitals, period and uterus is still a stupid taboo and how it affects the rest of you maybe even more so. Getting checked for cancers and other illnesses in your reproductive systems are crucial check ups one should do no matter how embarrassed or odd you feel about it. If something is up you may get to the right specialist and the right treatment much faster.

I am not sure what to tell myself today, like I said I feel like I am battling a system that clearly does not work as effectively as I would wish and I am just trying to stay alive at the moment. Norway, the Netherlands or England... they per my current assessment seem equally rubbish to me when it comes to healthcare and being treated right at work should you be so unlucky to fall ill without any clear diagnosis over time.

And if another person tells me to be positive now I would honestly like to say shut the fuck up! This does not help me at all, right now I am going through hell and no it is not any positive aspects to such pain! People who say this just want to feel good about themselves and experience a less negative instant vibe. This is rather selfish considering their kidneys are fine and their uterus does not feel like it is being ripped out of their abdomen. I do not want to say I am sorry for my ranting right now because it is important to know that when people are in constant pain even with painkillers or very ill it does not help them to call them negative believe it or not.... strange I know ;)

Just a tip from the iron fist Viking ;)

I do hope it all goes well and right now I am just waiting for things to happen. It seems this month and the next are going to be the ones to get answers. Crossing all my fingers and toes now and hoping for the very best.

Xo

Viking

Uncertainty

Hola ,

I hope all is well with you. Right now the snow is covering the mountain tops in Odda and I am contemplating to work out a bit. Not sure if I will go jogging outside seeing the sun is shining for once. I reckon that this girl will end up on one of the training machines in the training room hehe. Maybe a stroll later on today.

Since I wrote last I went to the hospital to get a doc check why I have immense pains in my back and sides of my lower abdomen. They now suspect the same as I did the last few months, kidney stones. I will go to get a scan of my body in 20 days to see if they can find anything and destroy it. The good news is that if it is this then there are several ways to remove kidney stones and thus remove the symptoms, the bad news is that you are in agony worse than giving birth until they do so. Currently it is so bad I feel dizzy and vomit when the pain is at its worst. I find that taking pain killers, drinking a lot of water, reducing salt and sugar intake and working out helps. Yet some days nothing does. In part the body and its coping mechanism fascinates me. When it is your own body however it is somewhat limited how focused you can stay when it hits you like a brick. It has been like this for a long time now, it started in 2014 and has increasingly gotten worse and the symptoms are typical for kidney stones.

One feels very lucky to have a partner to lean on when  the symptoms are at their worst and it is hard to be working as a normal human being. It creates uncertainty in my life and more so than what one would think, but he is there and tells me no matter what he will not bounce out of my life. This is new to me and I have a hard time trusting it all. The only thing that has dominated my life until I met this guy was uncertainty. Is this a new era ? A new direction and if so will it last? I hope so.

Meeting someone who is rock solid in their morals and belief of a partnership is just what I need I think. When I am like sand running through someones fingers, well he is that bucket that catch me and makes me solid as well. It is a fine thing having someone believe in you when you feel like there must have been something wrong with you seeing almost everyone else  has left you when times were tough. It brings back a positive view on life and a hope that I am good enough for someone. Many people do not realise how hard it is to have faith in your own ability when your body is not working the way you want. It affects everything, including the way you respond to trivial conflicts. I hope the next year will start with clean kidneys and no pain and thus a brand new focus and love for life!

Certainly, having the warm loving family of my bf around has been such a blessing. Out of all the people in my own family I can say that it has ultimately been my dad that has been the most supportive the last years. When my life got ripped apart in 2015 he took those broken calls and even-though I figure it was a new thing to hear his kid pour her heart out to him he listened and helped where he could. It is almost embarrassing how low I was when speaking to him. I expected him to bail at any point as he had done in the past. But my dad has learned a lot from the ups and downs in our family and so he stuck in it for me. I am grateful for that, because honestly I was ready to throw in the towel at that point. I had been broken so many times I could not put myself back together. In those times it is important to have family I think and good friends that say, GIIIIRL we are here no matter how bitchy you are or broken, we are here for you right now and expect nothing more from you than that you get up in the morning and exist until you again feel the beauty of life hit you with the warmth of a summer breeze. When you finally get through these though times we will feel so happy for you. That is the kind of people I choose to surround myself with and I expect myself to be just an equal support for those when they have a hard time. Of course timing affects such relationships, sometimes we go through things, hard things at the very same time. Those moments are good points in time to be a bit more distant. I am glad not everyone have to go through hardship at the same time as me though, I have no clue how I would get through this without my dad, my bf and his family.

I hope that you are having a good day and if not remember it is okay to be feeling like shit sometimes. You are not a freak at all and it is natural  to feel down when you are going through harsh times. Just remember to breathe and get outside and meet those warm people once in a while. Let them inspire you to find that happy place once more. :) 

xo Viking

Just my Friday Contemplations

Hola,

We live in such a strange world. I look around me and sure, I want to conclude that it can be good this strangeness. Yet I find it hard to say. The words just get stuck like a dryness in my mouth. Not because of my own hurdles, but because I know of people who have way bigger struggles than I have. I also know people with less. No, the reason I find it hard to picture our world growing into something better or awesome is simply one good look around me. I am so lucky to live in Norway and not have war pulled down over my head like a size zero sweater. Too many people starving, war ridden, running from terror and dying to get at the very least a roof over their head in a place where hate does not drive their families into their grave. It is strange to sit here and listen to the eternal rain hitting the roof and the winds pushing the tree back and forth outside the window in the living room knowing people, small kids are out at sea drowning just to have tried to get to Europe and a better life than what they had. I also think about research, documentaries and the papers I have read about what the causes are for these desperate attempts. The symptoms of a dying planet and the growing hate and division of people. I am not sure knowing stuff always make you happy, but I know that not knowing would be strange as well in our digital age. I think that our planet as we know it will change forever and it is happening right now, spreading like a wild fire through dry grass. When people get desperate and scared it is easy to say and do desperate things, when we are too many it is easy to overlook one head, two small hands reaching for a simple commodity as still water is. To risk the most basic you have, your own life to save the most important people in your life...would you do it? 

Sometimes I wonder, would any of my family members do that for me? I mean if it came down to that desperate decision , would my life be worth more than I think it to be? 

The research tell us natural resources, climate and species all around the world are already in a bad way. Why is it, that we who have the money and privilege keep disregarding the signs of a dying planet?? Or even more important , why do we do so little to save the lives of our children that will live in this earth after us? We can never know for sure what the future will hold, we could get hit by a comet or have some super-volcano erupt... yet we do know 100% the planet is in a bad way, we know people suffer as a result of poverty and shortly put, hate. All of us can contribute to lessen those 3 facts.

It is a horrendous cycle of a few factors:

1) Poverty and overpopulation- lack of resources and lack of knowledge

2) Corruption and war - bad politics

3) Use of technology that pollute and kill important key habitats and species

4) Capitalistic focus in i-countries leading to use of unethically produced products and deterioration of natural resources.

I could draw these points into a circle , because they feed each other and affect each other. Not to be negative but there is no upward spiral here. A country with a lot of poverty will see negative effects on their governmental institutions, their loved ones and natural resources. Bad politics is an effect of impossible expectations and promises in a place where people have nothing left to hope for but change. The people who get into a powerful position in poor countries often walked over corpses to get rich enough to get there. They lied to people because they know they are desperate for just THAT little piece of hope. Sadly the win of political power often starts a new cycle of war and corruption leading ...essentially to no real change at all.

The real tragedy is that it takes a lot to get a country out of such as cycle, yet it is damn easy to end up in poverty. That fear of loosing the so called upper hand, that is the seed of corruption and division.  The start of ¨they¨ and ¨not us¨.... ¨our culture¨, ¨their traditions¨.

It is easy to fear the unknown. Norway has not been a rich country for long, about 5 mill. people, it is a big country and has a lot of natural resources and fossil fuels... easy money, quick money... unethical earnings. The oil barons are scared to loose their income and their employees are as well. They know what effects they have on other people in other parts of the world and they know the ultimate sacrifice. Where fear goes, corrupted thoughts follow. Time and time again documentaries and research shows us the same answers time and time again. As long as we keep overpopulating the world and some keep the fear of loosing materialistic things I will be honest and say I do not see any break in the bad cycle. You never know though, maybe that super volcano will be less of a curse after all?

There is no point ignoring the world we live in. We are all inn it together, like it or not. Reality is what it is and just because some people choose to turn away does not make the challenges we face go away. I do not hate people who think differently, just think ignorance is bliss and fear is fear...

There you go, there is my typical brain storm on a Friday evening. It will not change the world, but I cannot let it go.

xo Viking

September Adventures in Malaga

Hi there,

My last post was rather critical and about things of the past. It has been a hectic time med illness and other negative things after I got back from Spain. Due to all the surreal things happening and still going in I forgot to write about my time in Malaga. So I thought, let´s do it now! :)

We flew to Malaga on the 12th of September. It was very rainy as we left the Quality Hotel near Stavanger Airport. For breakfast we had watched the planes take off in the rain. We took a taxi to the airport which took about 5min. Our plane was of course having some delays so we waited at the gate for some time, yet we did not care. The very first time going to Spain for me and going on a longer trip to an unknown country with the boyfriend so I was more nervous and excited about that fact than anything else. We had invited some friends of us to join us on the sunshine coast of Spain but we were told they had other plans and that they were in Luxenburg when we planned to go and not days left to take a holiday from work. Bummer but we thought nothing more of it, because it is rather common these things. What we did not know was that these friends were planning a trip to Malaga as well and they surprised us at the airport! It was so funny. The moment I got a Snap picture of the back of our heads waiting at the gate I turned and saw their faces smiling back at us. Totally confused we started laughing. It was the start of an awesome trip I thought. 

I was right, the trip was amazing and I have no clue why I had let my past make me nervous about travelling with my lovely man. We rented an apartment in the city centre, it was right next to the harbour, train station and main bus stops. We landed in the sunshine and 33 degrees Celsius! Loved it!

Due to traffic and rebuilding of the roads going through the city centre it was hard to find the apartment by car. So we jumped off in the shopping street and walked to our block. It was an old piece of architecture and a beauty of a building. 

We stayed there for 2 weeks in the sunshine and went to visit numerous historical places. There were so many places to see and several beautiful religious buildings that were artwork in my eyes and very interesting sites to check out.

One of the days we went to a ¨the castle on the hill¨ called Castillo Gibralfaro and that was some hike I can tell you right now. In 34 degrees in the shade we climbed up the tiles in the sunshine and at the very top we had this wonderful view seen below! Just an amazing feeling to experience with someone you love.

We also went to the beach of course but mostly we were there for the experience of a new culture, architecture and food. The sunshine was also important, the past years I have not had a real summer and so this time I wanted to feel the warmth on my skin again and wear a dress. Silly as that sounds it did me good to wear a bikini and get the D-vitamins my body was longing for.

It was not just that, I have not since I was 15 had a summer holiday that was longer than 1 week. Because I have been working or helping people whenever off from work or studies it was simply needed to find the calmness within and to try to mend my health. 

And boy we had such a good time. Every day I felt myself skipping down the street and looking for the next adventure. We went to the Picasso museum and learned new things about the artist and his paintings and sculptures we did not know before.We ate a lot of Spanish and Italian food and we even found a vegetarian restaurant in the city centre. The service it Spain was either good or bad, some places you would be treated like royalty whilst others you would be ignored or treated horribly even by the waiters. I often found the recommended restaurants filled with tourists so we started not going to those unless having no choice. Overall the Italian restaurants were pretty good in service, food and price-wise. The local and small scale Spanish restaurants were also pretty good.  All the fish restaurants my friends tried were horrible and had little choice for vegetarian or willingness to fry just vegetables. My advice would be stay away from fish places, they were expensive and had foul food. I had a tomato salad at one of these places, it tasted like raw fish....horrible ! It was 1 sliced tomato with some salt and balsamico and it costed over 10 euro so nope not my cup of tea.

Except for that, Spain was great. I loved it and will go back for sure! We visited the botanical garden Carmino del Jardin Botanico and it was wonderful and had lovely food and service at a good price. Entering the botanical garden costed 5 euro for both of us and the food we got served was organic and locally grown vegetables. It was around 10 euro for the goat-cheese salad and around us were such colourful beauty and botanical artwork almost taking our breath away. We even saw a lizzard passing us as we strolled through the gardens. It was a very old and sometimes we caught ourselves feeling like we travelled back in time.

They even had a barbie house dedicated to the family that used to own the gardens and a lot of historical buildings in memory of the royal holiday resort which it was back in the 1800´s. It was warm in the gardens, we found places to cool down in the shade and read about the history behind the gardens on information boards situated around the huge facility. I would go there again! To have gone to Spain and spend a whopping 2 weeks in the sun did me good. We got to go on an adventure together and got to swim in culture and got to see fragments of history which a lot of people seem to forget exists in Malaga. 

We will be back ;) This was just the type of travel I love<3

xo Viking

#metoo

Dear Readers,

Many of you have seen and re-posted this metoo tag online and some of you might still wonder what it is about. Media is covering it as well and it is a tag highlighting just how many women (online) around the world have experienced sexual harassment or rape.

Sadly I kind of feel it is a tag trend as well. Because the real tragedy is that  the online women might talk about the sexual harassment and rape as adults online, yet there is a little girl going to school right now getting harassed or raped and the teachers, adults and friends around her is turning their chin away. They all pretend it is not happening. Whether or not this is because it scares them or because they freeze just like that little girl I am not sure.

My story is one of those where the teacher turned away and so did peers for many odd years. It has affected me greatly and due to this and other circumstances as well  I struggle to trust and confide in people. It is easier on a sheet of paper or on a page I will not lie. I still remember the first time I experienced sexual harassment like it was yesterday, even without the hashtag I see the faces of the guys which put bets on who dared touch my boobs and ass. Dark haired, ginger and blonde... I remember how angry I got and how the shame just flushed over me because everybody saw what they did to me in the schoolyard! I kind of wished no one saw as silly as that sounds, it would have been less of a betrayal and maybe I would have still had some faith in friends and family. But no such luxury and result is a person who does not trust anyone entirely. I often landed myself in fights due to some arse of a boy touching me or making me look like something dirty. First time I must have been 13 years and the worst part was that girls thought these guys were cool and at times they even copied the lads that were harassing me. My exterior self showed an angry and feisty lass, but the school toilets showed many suppressed tears and anxiety attacks. #Metoo means people talk  about and highlight sexual harassment and that I suppose is good, but the damage is already done. Yet I ask you.... today if you suspect that a kid is being harassed  or touched at school in such a nasty way...what will you do? Or if you look out the window as you are eating your lunch and you see a girl from your class punching a lad in the face because he just grabbed her from behind...for a 10Eur note or a cigarette from the rest of the crowd...WHAT will you do?? Will you speak out? Even if you have issues on your own? Will you truly? #MeToo , will it change the way we deal with uncomfortable or inconvenient truths? Or will we continue to chew and swallow the lunch and hope someone else dares to speak out? A hashtag will not change how it feels when you are let down or shamed I can tell you that right now. A hashtag is not  the rescue the young kids needs, a hashtag is just a hashtag , it is another trend or a result of something that should have never happened in the first place and I know it will never change the scars I am left with. It will never change the statistics I am now a part of. Yet I hope the stories behind it in some way or form will motivate you to take a break from your lunch and look out the window in a new light and stand up for that girl or boy. Tell the bullies that this is not something anyone deserves. The harassed might be strong but that does not mean they do not need your voice to help them.

xo

Viking

Traces

Hi Everybody,

Long time no typing. I do not really know where to start, but not to worry ya´ll because I am still in love and still feeling safe with the boyfriend :)  Health-wise I am still on a waiting list and still caught up in a slow moving system. It feels a lot like I do not even care much anymore, I just want answers to what is going on with my immune-system and get some tests done that have been a long time coming. If they cannot get them next time I do not know how strong I can stay anymore. It is troubling not to know why certain things are occuring out of the blue and to have a fair bit of health issues affecting my day-to-day life. Very much looking forward to moving to a big city again. Longing for Stavanger and staring a new study as well as better doctors and healthcare systems. Next year it all begins, a new adventure and hopefully even more joy and good news than what I have had in 2017.

I know certain things will be though, they always are (what was that word again..called easy I think...nah still have not had the pleasure to meet it yet...;). Yet I am in a place where I feel mentally strong when it comes to challenging myself and developing my own intellect. I want to get better, to be a better person than what I have been in the past. I want to be smarter and more open. To not let the past shut me down ever so often as in the past. I will admit it is not easy to change my ways. I often find myself caught between 2 sides when trying to mend things or highly criticised when trying to be open and honest. I mean it when I say that I deep in my soul do not wish to hurt anyone. I try to understand certain people eventhough they might hurt me or cause me grief. Because if I understand then maybe it hurts less, this has not always been the case. People are odd, especially those you hold close. Some waste your time or at the very least do not respect your time. Others well they twist around their own axes not noticing that the clouds they create makes them see less of the clear blue sky nor the lightning that strikes what used to be their favourite spot. Understanding people can be so hard and trying to be patient and understanding even harder. I try to turn to people like my bfs mother who is such a lovely lady and ever so patient with everyone it seems. I look to people who show kindness instead of envy and I strive to be less emotional in the negative sense and solve my problems less impulsive.  Those are really my most weak points, that when I get hurt I either fight or run, I prefer to run, run , run because anything else cause me great stress or panic. This is of course not true in every situation, but when hurt badly surely and especially hurts caused by the people I love or that stand very close to me. I hope to evolve and to become better but building up patience is hard, people are hard to be with sometimes. I am also hard to be with sometimes. At times I also lose a hold of what is the right way to react, especially when I feel anxious about a situation or pick up on a really bad vibe. Working on becoming better is the only way to be truly happy for me. 

                                                                                           ( My charming feline Oct , 2017)

                                                            

Think about the traces we leave on people´s hearts. I sometimes wonder what mine will be, if I suddenly left this earth who would miss me and more importantly what kind of trace would I have left on someone´s heart. Family or friends or even past friends not in my life anymore. I think about that alot, it matters to me and I am not sure why if that makes sense. Is it really a good thing to ponder on those things? Not too sure, but I know I can be better at so many things. I cannot say it enough. Even if I am a hard nut sometimes, the nut has a heart. It has been cracked open many times, glued back together and smashed again and again. I thought it would be impossible to glue it back together one more time but I have been so very lucky. If only this was the last time it had to be glued together. One can only hope, but I chose to think this time it will last. :)

                                                                  (Winter arrived on the scrubs in Buer Valley, Oct 2017)

xo

Viking

Scared by my Body

Hi there,

I promised myself I would not write too much when inn this state but I somehow a part of me might find it calming. 

As many of you know, last year I moved back to Norway inn hope of finding my way and become a more healthy person. I was ill all the time which is not like me, not really my thing to be sick. I used to ignore it until I fell. Somehow I always found the energy deep down. Well after 2007 I found my body slowly breaking down. It got escalated by stress, yet I ignored it, pushed it and pulled it up my hills of goals and helped break it down. When I finally had a breather it collapsed and I got very ill for sometime. When I moved to NL I started to get sick all the time, struggled to keep my eyes open and felt pains and infections creeping inn and out of my body. I hated it and I refused to see a doctor for a while since none of them had really helped me in the past. Also in part I was just sick of white coats. As a little epileptic girl  and an recovered eating disordered patient  I was kind of done with shitty healthcare personnel that just did not have social tools to deal with people nor the expertise to help find out what was wrong with me.

It is of course not easy or straight forward to diagnose a problem and certainly not when you are dealing with someone like me. Why? Because I was so done with it all and hurting from mistreatment from the past. Needles, clipboards, journals and pins were ordinary memories to me. Memories of dad passing out in an ex-ray room because I had too many tubes and wires connected and a mum telling me to lay still and do as the doctors said.

I did not want to have that sort of attention and I certainly hated the medicines that made everything I ate taste like shite! I am certain this was the beginning of a eating hell, but inn any case the point is not this.... it is that I got sick of it all. When you have seen doctors since you were 5 and you feel relatively out of place and overrun it is just one of these things you wish to push back and not experience longer than possible. Certainly complaining about it gets old and most tests a habit.

Anyway, this is just the background of how I came to be so sick of lab coats and health care personnel. There is a longer version but I will skip that. As you know I hoped that after my body gave up several times while in the Netherlands, Norway and it's nature and fresh air and low paste would help. Only bad combo is that I do not know how to relax. I want to work work work and certainly ignore my body until it is too late. I was feeling better this winter, especially when working in the kindergarten, though I had some small set backs with kidney infections here and there and kid's diseases I was all inn all not too bad. I must have called inn sick 2 times only which is a grand improvement from before.  When I started a new job this spring I felt good, had energy and bounce and felt like I could do anything. Had not been sick in a while and felt great. Little did I know that after a busy summer with a lot of unforseen events and kidney infections my body would crash like this. 

Every morning I wake up feel dizzy and lethargic, my kidneys ache and the doctors do not know why. I feel shaky and very sleepy. Almost intoxicated like I was drugged and my head hurts most of the time. Emotionally I can feel flat and not care, I just want quiet to sleep and not be disturbed much. Some days I feel myself tear up at trivial things. I feel scared because my legs are shaky and as if I have an infection. I get fevers out of nowhere and if I have a lot to do or deal with a difficult situation my body refuse to work with me. It is no good way to really explain how scary it is that my body is now sending out signals urging me to stop moving without a concrete cause. It scares me shitless! As I am writing this for example my right hands fingers are vibrating when I try to keep my hand still. My head is pounding again and I have a fever.

I have gone to the doctors and been forwarded to specialists in Odda after a year of just treating symphtoms. If they do not figure this out I will probably be forwarded to Haugesund or Bergen. Urg! On one hand it is great that I seem to be getting some help, on the other hand I still feel like this part of my life should be over until I turn 60 or 75 at least. I ask myself, WHY is this happening NOW? I mean I used to never feel ill before I went to England. It is like my body is just shutting down and several systems are not working as they should or when they should. On Thursday walking to the bus that takes me to work I felt my legs give inn and the twisting and spinning of the world begun again, I was leaning against walls to get to the stop where I normally wait. Truth be told it freaks me out, because as I have handed in my notice a while back now I know I will not work inn my current job after September and I can go back to working with the kids. My body will not listen. It is like an unruly teenager beating the shit out of my kidneys and brain. Maybe I just need to have different life, it can be hard to find the right balance?

Someone I used to know told me he gave animal names to his friends to remember their names better. If I was him right now I would call myself a SLUG because that is how I feel. Like boneless gue with sensitive feelers on my head. I feel I am loosing control and I hate it of course. No clue what I will do but I hope it will be okay. Just very scared of yet another hospital era.

Now I have a few days off so I will try to not sleep away all of them and just enjoy them with the supportive man I have in my life :)

xoViking

Plans and Pretty Stories

Hello there,

Months have passed and I have remained quiet. You may argue it is a good thing. Either way I have not had time nor felt the urge to write this summer.

I have been busy with life, work and living the good life with the man who came by, tore my walls and doubts down and swept me off my feet. Time suddenly passed by like the it was just an odd racing-car bulletining through time and space. It feels too easy sometimes and I have to keep pinching myself because I am so scared I am just imagining that life can be this good to me.

Another good thing that happened to me since I last wrote is that I got to work for a local hotel. It was a nice yet time consuming job to have. I met a lot of nice people and learned some new skills which I appreciate. It is nice to work for people who are patient and kind.

Not sure I told you all but I also applied to university in Stavanger simultaneously to doing interviews for the hotel job. I never thought I would get inn with my luck and to be honest I did not feel smart enough because there are thousands of applicants. I buried myself in work this summer never the less, to earn money and to save up just in case I got inn and if not at first try at least next year maybe my mind whispered. Yet to my surprise I did get inn! The shock and the overwhelming feeling when I realised I had less than 1 month to get ready! Luckily I could apply to move it forward a year and start August 2018 pheew. It was too much going on in my life to fathom that I actually got inn!! And so little time to arrange things was a bit stressful for a control freak mind like mine.

Well it sorted out and next year about this time I am yet again a student of a Bachelor. This time around though it will be a degree in Foster Care Cases and Pedagogic ! I loooove it and of course I am a bit terrified! I have a grand plan and this means I can go ahead with it and wiggle my way to another degree and I am so grateful it all works out.

My health has not been great this summer, dealing with some stressful events have brought about reactions, my kidneys literally freaking out again and getting infections but hoping I will be referred to a specialist this week to see if there is anything else going on there. Remember a few years back I had kidney infections on a monthly basis and now it is less but so painful still. The Norwegian air is definitely working its magic on my body, yet they doctors have yet to find out why my body decides to collapse when put under extreme stress. Because infections are rather extreme reactions and it is scary when a body like mine who has been through hell and back without getting infectious at all has such reactions. SO to be continued there.

To sum it up, it was a busy summer and with a lot of unexpected twists in good and not so good ways. I choose however to focus on the good inn my life now and to go ahead with my grandplan ;)

Chiao ! :D

Be kind !

Love the Viking

Cultural Piss and Pleasantries

Hola! 

I am back after a rather harsh pneumonia virus, and NOW I am reminded why I did not enjoy the health care system here in Odda much in the first place. It is actually much worse than I remember!  I mean sure we do not pay the health insurance additional to government taxes but furthermore, the care for patients is definitely not a priority. The budget is first priority next to earning money on sick people. At least in my hometown the health care is being cut back and what is left is a slightly but barely functioning surgery. The hospital is about to loose their E.R surgery and honestly after loosing the delivery room a few years back it comes as no surprise that our lives do not matter much to the government. Now consider that our city is one of the most growing tourist attractions because of Trolltunga. We have a lot of industry and it is far to the next hospital that has an E.R! Only last year we had over 80.000 tourists visiting us in summer and this year the prognosis is around 100.000 if not more. These are often people with no climbing experience nor great fitness! No E.R.??!  Shocking ....just utterly shocking!

It has been a long time since I have met with a doctor when real sick and actually felt like they did want to help me out. I understand they are under a lot of pressures and maybe that is the problem. I feel bad for the very people that should be there as a support system and help for when I am sick. They actually get paid for me telling them to check my vitals and blood when my temperature is around 40+ Celsius ! Again, baffles me...

So life in Odda is to no surprise getting on my nerves even-though I am mostly happy and content. I have a lot of great people around me. However, I keep wondering when I will loose them, and by no means do I want to seem negative here. Still the facts remain that I have lost a lot friends and loved ones the past years. It seems to be a consequence of the course of time. I keep getting pulled back to moments when I was this happy with the people around me just to be reminded that I lost them soon after. 

It is strange to have so many memories flowing through my mind like a river and feeling like I have lived several fragmented lives in my past. Knowing I have lived lives beyond these borders that few people around me seem to understand just to land back in my hometown and starting the cycle over again. It is like some kind of entrapment of sorts. Maybe it does not make fully sense, because is hard to explain but to make it short it feels like I am old... I am old and it is like I died several times. I am constantly reminded of moments and memories both good and bad ones and I sometimes do feel regret in that I cannot go back in time to fix things.

I, now more than ever feel impatient with cultural piss linked to narrow-mindedness and mean people. What is pleasant with in this tornado of memories and feelings linked to that you ask? Or rather, what makes me happy and content these days here and now?

Well a sense of calm that comes when you enter a low-paste life. People around me are finally not in a hurry, I do not feel guilty when I sit down and relax and I am not considered lazy. This time I am the one in a hurry and I am the impatient newcomer that likes to get things done swiftly. I have been lucky to meet someone who is showing me everyday I am worthy of being loved and that feels like everything I ever missed even if it is also a bit scary as well.

No I am not lost, just very aware of the bridges I have crossed and the repetitive course life has. I feel blessed to have had such an eventful life and even more happy knowing it will probably be eventful until the actual end of it. I know I am prone to meet interesting personalities and jump into new adventures in a flash. On the inside it feels like someone has lit fireworks and I am on the road I was meant to be on all along. My prints in the soil are lit up by the spontaneous colours of the fireworks in the sky.

Still not even close to perfect and fully aware of the piss and pleasantries surrounding me at all times ;) Have a nice day sweethearts! 

xx Viking

How I sort out trauma

Hola,

So as many of you may know I did not always enjoy my childhood. Sure there were good moments and journeys that were made. But in many ways I was not allowed to feel like a child and I was in some ways more expected to act like an adult from a  really young age. Now, maybe I was also in part a very independent personality from the getgo but I would like to emphasise I was a child and I did need to feel like one just like everyone else. There are many grown ups like me out there that were robbed of their childhood due to different sorts of trauma or neglect. I remember that as I moved away from my hometown the first time struggling with the memories and anxiety from trauma. I had NO self-esteem yet tried to fake that I did. After all I was an adult and expected to have my shit together.

The fear you do feel when pushed to the edge of what is bearable is beyond my words. But I can tell you that day inn and day out felt like I was being chased, criticised and that if I lost my way I would end up back in hell. Little did I know that these emotional states would come back to haunt me every-time I would fail at something or have a setback. I wished so hard for a pill or a magic button to appear that would wipe my memories clean or re-set my feelings to neutral. It was that bad that my life did feel like torture as a teenager. I turned my frustration inwards and needless to say I suffered a lot because of that. Now, there are many people that go through this and all I can share are some of my stories and how I got through some of my tough times on this blog.

So one of the things that helped me use my feelings constructively was a therapist. A good one and to focus at one thing at the time. To exhaust my excess energy that often comes with restlessness and frustration.

Every-time I was chased by nightmares and poor self-esteem I would work out more intensively and it removed stress in the most liberating way. There is almost no use for people to join me when I do sports because I am so intensely working on what is within that I zone out and run until I almost collapse. I focus and I calm down thereafter but for me this works. To regulate this immediate fix has been an issue previously because with my very independent and high achieving personality it can become an addiction or a way of self-medicating. I think I have come to the point when I know what works and what does not work for me. But it does not hurt to be careful even so. 

The traumas I experienced growing up will always be with me in a way. But I found that when I accepted what they made me or who they made me into and how I ended up dealing with situations and people they made some sense. Nightmares are way less and I work through frustrations in a healthy way mostly these days.

Bullet points for people who struggle with similar things that I did.

- speak to a professional and get emotional tools from them

- move your body, get out the negative energy

- meet people and learn from those who inspire you

- shut out people who give you negative shit, it is hard but worth it and it is perfectly OK!

These days I am doing ok though I like anyone have my D-days. When they pop by these days must be a reminder of how far I have come the last 10 years. Only I know what I have really had to go through and only I have the ability to fight my own issues. That is why I choose who I share certain things with, with the most care. I would advice anyone who go through similar things to do the same.

Xo Viking

Snow and Old Photos

Hi there,

The winter and spring are having a fight about who shall be present this march in Odda. Time passed by faster then I could ever imagine. The air feels fresh and I enjoy the little things as best I can whilst still longing for the city of Stavanger and travelling. I have had to look inwards for many months and really stand in a lot of my own mess yet still deal with those of others. I pushed away the things and people who were hurting me, I had to because in the end it was hard to survive the winter with that on my shoulders. Yet I also tried to repair certain sides of myself and relationships as well as my health. Mostly I think I am doing and have been doing ok in this, but as you all probably noticed I did not feel like sharing much of it.

A lot is changing for me now, things have happened that I did not foresee at all and though they were mostly good things it has taken me a lot dives inside my own head and heart to deal with them. For a long time now I have felt like I do not deserve love, because emotionally I am a mess of course and my life is far from what anyone would like to lead. I also lost the ability to fall in love I think...or at least I thought. Though my trust issues persist I am starting to grant myself some love allowance. Yeah, let us call it that! :) The fear of jinxing something good is keeping me from saying more about the whole ordeal, but I am happy and working on myself. 

Not too long ago someone claimed I share too many of my feelings online. She was probably right, but then again most people do these days so I do not consider myself special in this and for the people who do not like what I write, simply STOP reading my blog. I would never force anyone to read what I write, nor would I wish them to. Certainly, I can question myself and what I am writing sometimes. Yet I am a writer and it is in my blood to do so and to share is just a by-product of this blog. I would never want to hurt someone else with my writings nor make someone else feel less than what they are. I just want to write and by that work through my thoughts and maybe share with people who find help in my scribbles or go through similar emotional states. This blog is also about travelling and different cultural impressions that left their footprints on my soul.

Since my last post in summer a whole lot has happened. I went to the Netherlands a few times, I moved my stuff to Norway and I travelled to Bergen, Haugesund, Florø and Stavanger a fair amount. Stavanger reminds me of Haarlem and I know people there so that is why I go there as often as I can and then Haugesund houses some of my friends which I tend to miss rather lots. So yes I have managed to travel and get away from Odda now and then. Though I feel rather ok living here , I do get restless and things are not always easy so I do try to find a job in Rogaland and to move to a city ASAP. 

I am hopeful that after summer or autumn I will have found something in the city and can update my blog more often with news and emotional ups and downs ;)

My cat is loving Norway by the way, she might be Dutch and all but her own space suits her just fine and the birds that come close to the window tempt my little puma to make leaps I did not realise she had in her. In May I need to get her vaccinated again, it will be bloody expensive but gotta be done for us to be able to travel. Right now the little gremlin is sleeping at the foot of my bed. 

Today I went to see my dad and grandparents. We found granddad´s old photos and would you look at that there were photos of me in all shapes and and sizes! We laughed a lot and it was really nice to sit and joke around about these things. I have not been an easy child, I know that but they were there for me anyway.  In the good spirit of taking photographs I took one of the snow that settled outside on the second official spring day of the year hahaahah.

                                                                                     Odda in the Snow 2.3.2017

                                        One of the photos my granddad took of me as a child by the lake at the Seljestad Cottage. #90s

xo
The Viking