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.