The land from a long time ago.

Sometime it feels like just like the little dinosaur, because he live in the land from a long time ago. Sometimes it feels like this world is just standing still, that we have done nothing. When people once again think that people of a certain color or certain religion should not be able to live anywhere in the world, that we cannot help everybody because we don’t have the means to do it. We all know that this is bullshit. We can help every human on earth – it’s just that, if we do, maybe we also have to change. And change, that is something I have talked about before. Everybody is so afraid of change, embrace it – change is you friend, change is there to challenge you and make you stronger.

Change come in so many variations, and sometimes it’s in your appearance. I have gained some weight. It’s been hard to embrace the fact that my body “isn’t what it used to be” -  which by the way, is a bullshit sentence. My body is what it’s always been. Mine. Mine to do what I want with, mine to live in, mine to cherries, mine to protect and mine to love. But all the same, it has been hard.

I thought about what I think is hard about me gaining weight. I came up with these things:

My old clothes do not fit me/fit as well anymore.
I do not like the way I look in the mirror
nothing makes me feel pretty anymore

These are 3 really shitty things to be standing and saying to yourself. It’s a shitty thing to say to any person, but to stand there and say them to yourself -  it’s like a mantra and all of a sudden you believe them.

All these tree come with an understatement. All of those things are incorporated with what others might think of me, what others would think if they saw that the clothes I where don’t fit me, if I don’t like what I see in the mirror, then others will think I’m ugly to, and if I don’t feel pretty, others will not think I’m pretty.

This once again makes me feel like I live in a the land from a long time ago. How in this world am I, 27 years old, successful, happily almost married, and in many people around me, like friends and family, tell me I’m beautiful every week, that I still cannot appreciate my body as it is. That I’m worried that people around will not take me seriously if I’m not skinny and what people at the coffee brake will think of me if I take 1 or 2 cookies. We are all pretty good at sending positive energy to others, and really shitty at doing it towards ourselves. Spread your love you for a change. You are the best version of you, do not let anyone tell you anything else.

 

Fat Feeling

Okay, so I have this idea that I would love to for to happen… And the only one who can do it is me. One thing tough – it will put me in a vulnerable spot and I wonder if it will “mark” me for life. For instance, like an actor who only does romantic comedies or horror movies, I would hate that! Because I just don’t want to make one type of movie – or in my case, I just don’t want to help just one group of people. But this has been such huge part of my life and I hope and think that if I share my story it will not only just help others, but it will also help me to feel better in my own skin and be more comfortable with myself.  

Something I have struggled with my entire life is my body. I have felt fat or ugly more or less all my life. I have had people comment on my body as long as I can remember from family, friends, frenemies, teachers, doctors, strangers, lovers.... Sometimes bad, sometimes good, sometimes whit the intension of being nice but it ended up making me feeling worse. Do you know what I mean? “Good for you wearing that tight top – you have the right showing of your body too!”. Yeah… thanks a lot…

I’m hardly the only person who has felt like this. I actually think that everybody has felt this way about their body at some point in their life. I know that everyone has better or worse days, but for you to wake up and feel that you will have a bad day because you are worrying about what people are going to think of you because the shape of your body, the state of your hair, the gap between your teeth, the length of your arms or in my case – the fat that is my belly, thighs, arms and back THAT IS NOT FINE.

That’s why I think it is important that I do this. That more people will stand up and say for themselves, and for others, no more. No more of the bullshit that I have to be the “right” weight, the “right” height, the “right” pretty. I’m clamming my right to be judge on the way that I am as a person,  I want to be judge on my actions not by my appearance starting now and continuing on forward. From now on I have Fat Feeling -  A big Fat Feeling that I am the best me at any appearance that I have had, have or will have in the future.  

I always write about love

I can see that for some, that would get boring. But the fantastic reason why I write about love is the fact that it surrounds me all the time. I make most of my decisions based on love. Love Tobias, love for my family, love for my friends, love for my fast, love for my future or love for me.

Sometimes I wish that more people would act- if I may say so – in the spirt of love. Sometimes I think that people forget why they do things really… You just do them because someone told you to, because you always done it or because or “it’s too late to do anything else”.

I guess that it is easy for me to say that more people should act in the spirit of love. I had a very great childhood, sure there where some obstacles, but I’ve always been loved. I never felt that I was completely alone (I bet that my 14 year old me would beg the differ) but I never actually been as alone as I have seen people being. People who have lost everything, their homes, there mother, father, brother, sister, their hope…

I’m no different than others. I judge way to fast and I have done, or rather not done, things that I am ashamed of. Walking past people who sit, in the freezing cold, outside of stores, they say hi to me – and there have been times when I don’t even say hello back. Ignoring someone who has had a far worse day, week, year, or life, then I have – that is just a really shitty thing to do.

Therefore I try to act as much as I can in the spirit of love, even how corny it may sound. I have so much love in my life, and I have plenty of it that I could share with others. I think that is what I want to do in my life. See that there is just a little bit more of love in this world before I leave it. I really hope that I can.

Going on 2017

2016 has been an amazing year, really! I really started to develop in my professional role as a project manager, I got a new job, we moved back home from Stockholm, we got engaged, we started planning our wedding and we got to spend Christmas and the New year’s eve with all our friends and families in the cold county of Norrbotten.

BUT!

It’s a new year with new possibilities. 2017 is going to be a year with a lot of action and it has already started! Yesterday me and Tobias bought a house. YES! You read that right. A HOUSE! It’s crazy! How many adult points do we get for that? And this summer we are getting married. Growing up over here!

The house is perfect for us. It really suits our need and wishes and I’m just so happy that we got it for a good price and that we can move in be for April. The house is not that big, but it works for us, we don’t need to have a house that is bigger than that right now, and that feels great.

So think that 2017 is going to be one of the best years in my life. I’m already loving it! J

Today is a very special day

Two years ago I was in Tobias apartment in Piteå and we were laying on the couch. We were laughing, I can’t remember about what, but he suddenly stopped laughing and said “soo, the thing your mother said the other day…” (she had bluntly asked Tobias over dinner where our dates where going, and of course, we had not discussed that yet) I just answered him with “oh, I know, I’m sorry about that, you don’t need to feel pressured” he replied with a big grin on his face and said “I’m not pressured, I would like if you were mine”.

My stomach flipped. I did not think that he would say something like that. It felt amazing, and I of course told I’m that I would be more than happy to be his. I leaned in over him, kissed him and said “I’m your girlfriend now”. We both chuckled and I have been happy to be in his arms ever since.

 

I’m soon to be married.

The year I turned 23 was a really crazy year for me. I broke up with my partner of almost 6 years. We had to divide everything between us, not just our hearts, but also our life’s. To break up with someone that you spent that much of you adult life with is a very hard thing to do, especially when you still love that person and still know that you need to break their heart in order to keep yours true to yourself.

I started a new life for myself where I needed to figure out who I was without anyone else. Even though I was the one who had decided that I wanted to be just me, I was so scared that I made the wrong choice. Luckily today, both me and my ex are very happy that we broke up. She is a amazing person and I love her for what she taught me about life and about myself and I’m so happy for her, her wife and their beautiful daughter.

My year of chaos passed and I had hit rock bottom. No job, no school, no apartment, no money and not a clue on where I wanted to be. I felt lost in more than one way. The one thing that saved me from going mad at that moment was my dog. Bamse made me be something, at least I needed to take care of him and that helped me to take care of myself.

When I saw him on Tinder I didn’t think more of it than that. He was really cute and his summary just stated that he was really nice and that he loved the TV show “På spåret”. When we matched I wrote to him “ you look like the nicest person in the world” and where off.

We meet the following Sunday, he came to Skellefteå and we had a coffee at Espresso house, after that we walked a short walk in the cold weather in early December. We came inside and he just flung himself on to the sofa, feeling right at home. I thought to myself “wow, he feels comfortable, I wonder if he just wants to be friends”. I sat down next to him. I can’t remember what we talked about, I just remember when he sat up, leaned in, kissed me, leaned back and said “I think I solved this nicely” and laughed.

After that I was hooked.

Here I am, just 2 years later. Still madly in love with that guy who loves silly TV-shows and he has asked me to marry him. I’m happier than I ever thought that I would be allowed to be. I try to use my happiness to bring happiness to others, and I hope that it works from time to time.

In 7 months, I will be Linnéa Filipsson, even writhing that feels weird and awesome at the same time. I’m so excited to have and to hold him for the rest of my life.

As long as I have him I have everything.

 

 

Deprived of not knowing more

Sometimes I can feel like I have been deprived the opportunity and the pleasure to know my grandparents better.

The only grandparent I have left is my grandad on my mother’s side. He has also been the one who has had the least impact on my life. My younger cousin ones described him as a bit of a “troll” haha, which is pretty funny when you think about it, because it’s kind of an accurate description of him.

My grandma died very young, hence I was also very young. I was too young to get to know my grandma more than just as grandma, she was never Else-Marie to me, she was just grandma, and I feel so deprived of not knowing more about her. I think I was 12 when she passed away.

I had a really close connection to my grandmother on my dad’s side. She had to children, my dad and my uncle, but she always wanted a girl. So when I was her first grandchild, and a girl, and I stayed the only grandchild who was a girl, she just put more effort in to me, and I of course in to her. I loved being around her. I spent a lot of my younger years at my grandparents’ house in Malå. My granddad used to sleep in another room (also called my room) and I would sleep with my grandma. It was a great time. I loved being there. My grandma died when I was 18, on the same day as Kristina graduated from Umeå. When I found out that she was sick, I was 15, I thought that she would live to see my children grow up, but she never got the chance, and I think she died long before she took her last breath, the Alzheimer took her piece by piece until northing was left.

When my grandma died, I think my granddad died to. After that he was never the same. A few years after my grandma died he still did things, like going fishing and just biking to some soccer game or just down town to have a coffee. I didn’t really understand how lonely he was in the beginning. Even though he is the grandparent that I have known the most in my adult life, I don’t think that I ever got to know the person who was my happy granddad, at least not in my grownup life. Still, he is the one grandparent that I have had de most contact with, and the one that I have had a grown up relationship to. He was a kind person who thought that he didn’t matter to him. I tried to tell him at least a million times that he was a big part of my life and that I loved him, but I still think I said that last part to little, that I loved him. I should have told him more often, every time that I saw him, talked to him on the phone. I hope he knew, and I hope he still knows, that I loved to talk to him when I lived in Umeå. I loved to visit him when I was in Skellefteå, and how said I was when I he didn’t let me come in through his door.

Because all of this, I always try to tell Tobias how utterly lucky he is to have 3 of his grandparents left. That he should cherries that and visit them often. I like visiting his grandparents too, I try to make them as my own sometimes, because they are lovely people, all of them. I’m sad that I never meet Tobias granddad sense they had such a strong connection, and I think that Tobias granddad and grandma was one of the happies couples in this world and when she talks about how happy they where I have a hard time holding back the tears, because they were as happy as we are, and I can’t imagined how sad she must feel sometimes going through life without him by her side. I hope that we get to be as happy as they were in their life.