knock on wood

it wasn't a long time ago when i wrote something about the value of being healthy and thus able to run. i got a very good reminder of this as i managed to sprain my ankle last week; nothing too bad but enough to keep me from running and practicing ashtanga for a few days. it is horrible to be forced to stay still; luckily i was able to go to spinning so i didn't completely lose my mind, but being deprived of my two favourite forms of exercise is anything but fun.


today i ventured out again and was more than happy to find out that the ankle is good enough to run with. so back to normal, thank heavens.

what now?

adapt, adjust, get used to, acclimate --the great strength of our species that allows us to fit in to a new set of circumstances so as to survive and even prosper. this ability applies to both physical and mental settings and chances; and it makes it possible to continue existing in conditions you wouldn't have had they been such from the beginning.


the key is the subtlety of the change. a full-blown ice age tomorrow and most of us are as good as dead; but a gradual cooling of the climate and we adjust. a husband beats his wife to a pulp and the odds are she is gone the next day; but a slow shift from name-calling to pushing around and from there to the eventual hit and it so much more difficult to leave. 


we grow into out surroundings in a way so seamless it sometimes makes me wonder how much of our lives are due to what we chose and how much of what we ended up with.  i understand fully well that you can't judge things constantly, and that you have to give that time every now and then to see how the big picture develops in order to make sound decisions. but where does the line go? how often would it be a good idea to step out of yourself and honestly evaluate what the deal is and what is going on? to ask yourself if what you have is what you wanted and if it is, how can you keep it so and support it so that it won't slowly slide away, how can you appreciate what you have and not to start to take it for granted just because you grew into it; and if what you have is not exactly what you would prefer, truthfully consider what needs to be done in order to get back on track again. 


but where's the difference between trying hard and hitting your head into a wall?


wherever the line may be, it of course requires some courage to recognize it -- firstly to do the necessary evaluation and secondly to have the balls to make the required changes. it is especially so as the final aspect of the adaptability we possess is that it glues us quite tightly to the existing situation; and to break free from that can sometimes be quite distressing, even frighting -- i guess the human nature is often such that it is easier to stick with the slightly uncomfortable familiarity than venture out to the complete unknown.


but if you don't do it you only have yourself to blame.

love/ hate relationship

people who know me in real life know that most of the time i'm not a huge fan of living in finland. even if i haven't lived abroad that much - once in budapest and twice in prague, in total about three years -- i have found it to be quite fitting for me and absolutely prefer to do so in the somewhat near future as well. there are several reasons for me wanting to live my life in a country other than the one i was born into, one of the biggest ones being "why not" -- i am still young, i don't have anyone i would have to take care of nor i am planning to have, and as i find the experience of living somewhere else so wonderful and enriching on many levels i would quite frankly be a bit silly not to do it again.


that is not to say that i don't like finland, or appreciate it. there is the very worn out saying in finnish that states that being born into finland is like having won the lottery (the fact that this saying exists really only in the mouths of the finnish speakers might tell something about its validity, though) and in a way this is true -- there are many things which are fantastic and work really well, and it sometimes annoys me that people don't really understand how well we have it here. but there are the downsides as well, like everywhere else of course --  the climate, the national psyche and mentality (of which i myself am sadly a good example of), the suffocating amount of rules and regulations and limits, the taxation, things like that; enough so that the uncertainty and some other possible difficulties that can be the by-products of packing your bags and finding your place somewhere else aren't enough to deter me from doing so.


but my point in this all that there are times when i absolutely adore this country, and certainly there has been and will be times when i miss it all. one of these moments i experienced today as i was doing my long run in the small town (or rather in the surroundings of it) where my parents live -- i got to run through forests and open fields in the clean, beautiful nature, the warmth of the summer on my face, in a complete peace with very little to no traffic or even other people.


so even if i don't want to live here at this point of my life, i do love this country; how could i not, at least on a day like this.

tgif

i've felt a bit tired lately, both physically and mentally. nothing i couldn't deal with or would be somehow worried about; just in a need of a small break, perhaps. 


there is so much going on even when there is really nothing going on; a varying amount of responsibilities, expectations, tasks, commitments -- the things you have to do, should do and on top of those, the things you want to do. so many words, impulses, things demanding your attention combined with only so much capacity to handle it -- it is not any wonder, then, that every now and then one gets a bit worn out.


it helps to try to concentrate on things you like doing, and thinking about something you are looking forward to -- it's a little bit like throwing an anchor to some point in the future and then just reeling yourself to it. a holiday, say. or a sabbatical.


or even the bloody weekend.

not so

there are moments in life that can only be categorized as defining. they mold you, shift your course, erase the values and beliefs you had and replace them with new ones. these moments bulldoze over what you thought was real and leave behind a scenery completely altered; like a landmark or an iconic building that is taken down remakes the face of a city so do these moments remake your present and everything that will follow. after a moment like that your life is not what it was a second before, and the completeness of the change can make it difficult to comprehend that it has indeed taken place; and at the same time you know that there is no going back, and whether you wanted the new situation or not doesn't make any difference at all.


after he had regained consciousness it hadn't taken very long for B to understand, even in his dazed state of mind,  that what he was experiencing  would -- well, already had -- erased his life as he had known it so far. the realization that nothing would ever again be or feel like it had before had been so fast and so clear, so unarguably final that it had felt like a fist to the stomach -- in one second everything he had and all that he was had been overwritten with a new and frightening reality.


the nausea he felt was so strong it filled most of his conscious mind and in a way he was grateful for that; for when it would pass, room for other thoughts would be freed and the horrible guilt he already felt in his every cell would blow into the extent it rightfully deserved.  
he sat there, the world spinning around him with a speed much faster he would have cared for. the left side of his face felt wet and he wondered with surprisingly faint an interest if he had threw up on himself; but when he carefully touched his cheek and then observed his fingers B saw that the substance on them was blood. in the darkness it looked almost black.


it was difficult to focus his eyes so he gave up and allowed the world around him to blur together with his grasp of time and place. the pulse of the lights of the emergency vehicles, reflecting from the wet asphalt, seemed like a mock imitation of the strobe lights of the night club just some tens of minutes ago; but the shouts and noises surrounding him had no resemblance to the beat of the music he and J had been consumed in. they were too harsh, too real and too loud in a way that made it impossible to ignore them; and yet they weren't enough to drown the voices B heard in his head.


J's, hesitant and unsure; the look in J's eyes worried and the line of his shoulders tense and rigid.


his own, gleeful and certain, backed up by the stimulants circulating in his system. 


it's ok, trust me, i've done this before...


...we will be fine


even with his glazed vision B saw that J, or rather what was left of him under the blanket one of the paramedics had discreetly pulled over his body, was most definitely not fine.