My summer of inconsistency and borrowed lives
I didn't write as much as I wanted, but I got to try what looked enticing from the outside.
School has started and life in Norway is returning to normal.
You can sense it in the way the light has shifted from hot white to mellow yellow. Evenings are still long, but you have to turn on the lights after 9pm, which I haven’t done for months.
We were blessed with a hot summer that still lasts. It’s too warm to sleep under a proper blanket, but there is a slight chill in the early morning air. Winter is coming.
My summer has been uneventful on the outside and tumultuous on the inside.
It gave me a break from my routines and my usual surroundings. I got to feel who I would be if I were to settle for a life most people desire. I connected deeper with myself and shed identities I no longer need.
I’ve been housesitting for 5 weeks in total, with sporadic homecomings to clean and welcome new guests that rented the place while I was gone.
Sitting houses has allowed me to try on different lives, to embrace the life of the inhabitants and imagine it was me.
We often envy others for what they have, and want it too. But when given the chance, when I finally dropped into someone’s life I realized I didn’t want it.
I don’t want an attached house with a tiny garden staring into the neighbor’s wall. This house felt crammed and dark, with low ceilings and small windows where I’m blessed with tall rooms and ceilings adorned with century old moldings and so much light glaring in during summer that I have to draw the shades.
I don’t love grey walls and dark furniture. I love my white and beige interior that that belongs to a warmer climate.
I could never live with junk drawers filled to the brim and unorganized kitchen cabinets where food and utensils live side by side.
I’m not judging or saying one way is right and the other isn’t. I’m just realizing I’m not that type of person and wouldn’t be happy in an environment like that.
Trying on someone’s life made me realize that I love what I have and who I am.
And although those people were blessed with a relationship, something I long for, their life wouldn’t be enough for me.
I walked through the rooms and gardens at those two houses liking it, but not loving it. It’s not mine, I wouldn’t want it. I want something else, but I’m still at a loss to completely defining what else looks like.
I just know that my soul yearns for something different than that.
I also thought living somewhere else would allow me massive time to write. Still, I didn’t sit down and hardly anything was written, except for the daily journaling sessions and a few newsletters here and there.
I thought joining “Ship30for30” would give me a place to connect with more writers and pour my heart out for 30 days straight. Instead, I burned out.
Not because the writing was hard, but because I also there realized that “this isn’t it”. I don’t want to write tutorials that ChatGPT can write better and faster. I don’t want to dazzle people with shallow expertise because that’s all I have time for because I rush to publish something every day.
I want to write things that move people, that make them feel something. Also here the something feels undefined, but it’s getting clearer.
The world loves to consume, and as creators we have to supply the demand.
We sit with arbitrary deadlines, pushing out content that isn’t fully aligned. We tell ourselves that’s what the public wants, this is where the attention and money lives while our souls weep for again being neglected.
I experienced firsthand what neglect looks like, and promised my soul and my inner child to not go down that road with them. So I stopped publishing because I felt I had nothing to say.
I’m making peace with the idea that there is no audience for what I long to write. At the library I searched for books that fit my current state, and I came up empty. Maybe I’m the rare unicorn, the only person amongst 8 billion that feels like this.
I hope that’s not true, and there are more of us out there. People that say “I want something else, but I don’t know yet what it looks like”. Maybe it’s too early for us to know fully, maybe the timing isn’t right. Maybe the planet needs to spin around the sun a few more times, the aliens need to land and take over so the world we long for and know is possible will show up.
I don’t know, I don’t have the answers. But I do know that I’m done settling for less. My soul is pointing somewhere, and I’m walking in that direction. I’m a lone explorer, but I’m sure the closer I get to the destination the more people will show up.
If you’re on the road walking guided by your soul, please keep walking. If you have no direction but know there has to be more to this life, then reach out so we can find out where you’re going.
PS: I’m scared to put this out there, but I opened up for 1-1 sessions. If you feel like you’re living the wrong life, let’s talk.
PPS: Every week I post a journaling prompt that goes along with the theme of the newsletter. On Saturday, I reveal my musings. Please join me and explore what we are made of.
Where am I trying to fit into a life that belongs to someone else? What would my life look like if I stopped doing that and created it as only mine?