Thoughts about saying good-bye (II)

Until I graduated from high school, a good-bye was never a big deal for me. It usually meant "see you tomorrow" or "see you after the weekend". However, the concept and the aftermath of good-byes have been keeping my mind occupied for quite a while now.

Not too long ago "have a nice life" seemed like a cool phrase to throw at your enemy. Now it's something I say to friends. People have a tendency to be optimistic and say "see you soon" in all sorts of situations, but sometimes you just know you are never going to see them again, simply because you reach a parting of your ways. My university town, Malmo, is the only connection I have with most of the people I met after I graduated from high school. Everything is so unstable here - people come and go, knowing that even if they come back a year or two later, things will never be the same.

But what's been really bothering me lately is the classical situation - one person stays and the other person goes. I have been on both sides.  Leaving home for the first time, I looked ant my brother and tried to picture what he would do after I'm gone. He would go to the kitchen, grab a few candies from the yellow bowl on the kitchen table, lie down on the sofa and watch TV all afternoon. I left my classmate in a train station in Malmo a year ago and flew over to England, thinking how she would go home and wrap herself up in a blanket, just like every day. I left my housemates in England, knowing that nothing really changed for them and they will soon welcome a new person who will sleep in the same bed I slept in. With or without me, these cycles never stopped.

But sometimes I get to be on the other side. Looking at my boyfriend in the train window after he visited me, I knew it was just the beginning of his journey, and I just went back to my apartment. Nothing was different, except the fact that he was there, with me, only half an hour ago.

It just gets so confusing at this point - you always hear how important you are for people, but when you are gone, are you really missed?

Is my Lithuanian me dead?

Constanly wondering. That's what I'm like not only in my mind, but physically as well.
Since I finished highschool, I've lived in four countries in two years. Four different cultures, nations. Four different worlds, basically.

I have met a few Lithuanians along my way and they all seemed so different from what I see around me now, living in the capital of my belved country.

Now, getting to the point, I must say that every - or nearly every - Lithuanian who's lived - or is living - abroad complains a lot about my country, in the most extreme manner.

'There's nothing good about this country anymore - the people never smile, the prices are high, the jobs are shitty and none of them pay you well', they say.

I don't mean to say it is not at all like that, but c'mon - why did they come back if it's so bad for them here? I see what they're saying, but I see good things, too.

People here do smile - if you smile to them first and you can get a well-paid job, if you are willing to go that extra mile it demands.

I just don't understand why people who are living abroad spread all this negativity through their impolite and rude comments in Lithuanian online media. If you hate it so much, why go back to it? This really frustrates me and I have no way of telling that to people who are living their happy lives in their miraculous countries yet proving to be the most negative of all in the comments sections.

Every time I come back from my adventure abroad, I try to contain myself and not speak badly of my country. Yes, in Sweden you earn ten times more than in Lithuania and pay almost the same price for your groceries, but do I really have to point out that you are welcomed when you are searching for a job here instead of being dismissed as a foreigner in nationalist Swedish job market?

Personally, my adventures abroad make me love my own country more and more. Since I moved to Sweden for the first time, I became incomparably more patriotic than I was before. I got my values sorted out and the fact really sunk in - I just could not speak badly of the country I grew up and live happily in. Surely, there are bad things and I am free to point them out, but I don't see why I should compare it to something totally different.

Am I really the rare type? Someone please back me up.

Summer's come, summer's gone

So here I am, back on the last day of summer 2014, after months of silence. Did I only find the guts to write again only because it seemed absurd to not squeeze at least one post into my blog while it's still summer? Maybe. I'd say yes.
It's this strange feeling that's been all over me for a while. It's contradictory: I want to write and I don't at the same time. I barely write anything in the summer. No letters to my pen pals, no blog posts, no short stories in my notebook. I'll blame the summer, it's always like this:

However, pushing away my zero productiveness in writing as a hobby, I worked as a journalist for a local news website. This job made me face my fears and do things I've never been  comfortable doing (e.g. call people I've never met multiple times a day, five days a week), but at the same time it's been an adventure. I love interviewing, and I had plenty of opportunities to do that. One of my greatest memories of the whole summer is the day I interviewed an Australian guy and his American girlfriend, who, thanks to a house exchange program, moved to a Lithuanian countryside. The two people from big cities now use water from a well, take care of ducks and grow their own food. Meeting them definitely was an opportunity I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Other than that, i also went to a music festival, which was way wetter than anyone could have expected. It rained for three days and tents were floating in water. We got lucky so our belongings didn't float, but others' did. Not being able to dry my wet clothes and cutting my toes whilst swimming on he sea on the first hour of a three-day festival was really annoying, but now that I am back and my cuts are healing, I remember that festival as one of the greatest adventures of the summer.

Yesterday I went to cheer for my friend and her boyfriend in the first-ever color run in Lithuania and that was amazing, too. Came back with my camera covered in pink dust paint and smiling from ear to ear :3

All in all, I can really say that my summer has been one of the best summers I had :)