I’ve had conversations. The bloody kind, me baring my neck for anyone to bite. But the people I’ve had the conversations with have been the good kind. They’ve said: “You have to be humble also with yourself, Katja. Some feelings you can’t help, they will just come and you’re left to deal with them. You have to be kind to yourself, Katja.”
And I think I am starting to feel better. I’ve been biking a lot. To lakes, with bikini and a towel in my basket. There’s been a lot of swimming. Today:
Friends helping each other to not get skin cancer. With Ashley, Dries, Emma and Emma’s friends at Gröndal, by Mälaren. Possibly the warmest and sunniest day of summer.
Biking home through the southern suburbs with Dries, not really getting lost, and arriving home just in time to leave again for Flaten together with cousin Jonatan. At the lake, we ran into mom.
The sun was golden and the water was so soft. Warmer than in Mälaren, I almost swam across the lake and now the tiredness is in my bones, as well as behind my eyes.
The good people. And family, from encounters yesterday and today. It’s so easy to forget the linkages and the effect one has on others. The good people who know me now, and don’t shy away from what they see. And the people that have known me always, can tell stories from Crete twenty years ago, people who remember the person I’ve been. Life witnesses, as mom calls them. The connection they create for me to past selves, and to something bigger. Family. Unconditionality.
I think I’m starting to get better now.
Katja Malmborg 