First of all I need to point out that both my future and past self are proud of me for writing this. And yeah to clear things a bit in the beginning, this is not only about the Echosmith song I used to listen to while bicycle riding in Lybeck this summer, but the lyrics to this song are written about my life, basically.

Ever since little I was on the lookout to find a bestfriend, someone to call all the time someone to make pancakes with and someone to send loads of letters with stickers on them (I grew up in the late 90s,beginning of the 21st century). I did find many bestfriends but somehow they always lived far away from me and sometimes the phone calls stopped... In school I started to write funny little stories about lonely ghosts living in beautiful castles at the end of a forest and I doodled a lot. People came to my desk and asked me what I was doing, sometimes giving me compliments so I kept doing it, because I felt like that would bring me some more friends. Don't get me wrong here, I mean I love getting creative and feel the paint and ink between my fingers and toes for that matter but the childhood me thought that doing stuff for other people whould make them like me a lot more.

The magical year of 2005 (the best year of my life so far) my family and I travelled to Madeira during Christmas even though I wanted to spend the holiday season at home, like we had used to every year before that. But I had a weird feeling that it had to be a good trip, so we went, me being happy and looking very much forward to it all. And when there the 8 year old me fell in love with a 13 year old guy. Those who grew up reading Astrid Lindgren's childrens books will know this. He was like Abbe, I was like Madicken. A real tomboy and a great friend, too old obviously. But I loved the feeling of having a crush and I felt so grown up when feeling sad to leave him behind when we left after that Christmas. But during that exact moment it hit me: in Finland I was lonely, when traveling I could find happiness and live the lovely and wonderful life everyone should. "All I ever want is, to be wonderful".

For I long time I believed that anything or anyone should control me and my life. And still I kept asking myself and God why I felt so bad about everything. But my saviour was my colorful and interesting dreams. I wrote them down in my mind and analysed them at the same time as I sung some MJ songs when walking home from school where I felt like a nobody. I was living on that one quote, something a friend once told me "you can decide how great your day is going to be". I created myself a coping strategy, something that made me think about the positive things in life. Most of the time I thought that it was the entire world against me and that my heart was made of glass, that I wasn't strong enough. So I thought to myself to keep on building this own inner world of mine, thinking about what I want to achieve in life and keep dreaming. I told myself that better days where coming, I knew they would, even thought those days where filled with tears.

When I opened up again I had gone so deep inside my own inner world that it felt like I held the key to my cage myself and I didn't feel like talking about it. The darkness felt like a saving angel, it truly did. I still kept living for everyone else, not myself. I only lived for myself in those dreams. Everyone started getting a lot of opportunities in their lives, they grew up, got a lot of fancy stuff, christmas presents, boyfriends. I was the clingy annoying friend that carried their bags and listened to them when they felt like nobodys and forever alones. They saw me, they heard me, but they didn't see the real me, the real me was invisible to them, because I kept it locked away from the world I lived in, the small fragile world of mine.

One winters night I discovered to things: scrapbooking and singing. I made thick books with pictures of everything I loved and wanted todo in them, like a buckelist. Then after making a scrapbook I went outside in the cold winter air and since I suddenly started to follow my gut feeling and do what felt like the right thing to do, I stood there with my bare feet in the snow and looked at the stars, stella polaris to be exact. And stella polaris looked back at me and said "you could be a star you know, anyone can". I went back inside and from that moment forward my coping strategy had become a person. Edie Seden was born. Edie is the maincharacter of my book and she lives side by side with me but the truth is that she is me, a strong version of me. When I got a bad grade on a math test because of my dyscalculia I wrote that Edie skipped a class in order to save the person who she loved more than anyone. If I got into a fight I wrote that Edie acted like a show off in front of her enemies and so on...

So I started thinking that I already had a accomplished all of those things, that I already was a writer and a singer and as the cherry on top a very succesfull one. I got critizised because of that, people whispered, even though I always could hear what they said "who does she think she is, a nobody that's what she is".

"can she sing?! I don't think she can.."

But getting critisism made me happy for the first time ever in my life, because it only meant that they where jealous that I had finally found happiness in life.

But one problem would still follow me a long time before I dumped it in the trash can, my fear of trusting other people. I stayed very quiet most of the time and didn't really open up to anyone, what I thought I wrote down, too bad that they don't read my notes I thought, because if they did they would know that my soul is beautiful even though the outer me isn't.

I still felt invisible in large groups of people.

When I had crushes I never told them about my feelings, I could love these people years and years, see how they had many girlfriends, cry myself to sleep afraid to speak. I could sit for hours and listen to other people speak about intersting subjects thinking like "hey I know this stuff, but nevermind", because when I said something they did not listen, but I didn't want to disturb their nice time.

I sat there and waited like I had done my whole life, I waited for my life to start, waited for someone to give me the sign. And those of you out there who feel the same way right now: there is no sign, you have the take the first step towards a better life yourself. After a few hours somebody would always ask if they've seen me, even though I had been sitting there the whole time, so I left. Not only did I leave the situation, I left those people, I left their world. Instead I opened the gates to my own life and knew that it would be awesome because I would be in charge. In my world early monday mornings looked beautiful, in my world every stranger meant a new meaningful discussion Socrates style. And like one of my favorite painters Henri Matisse said there are always flowers for those who want to see them, and I wanted to see those flowers, very badly.

I traveled a lot both physically and in my mind, met a lot of great and inspirational people who wondered why had not done some things before, but the answer was simple, I started living only yesterday, before that I only existed, literally.

Some may think I'm crazy falling in love with cities, streetlights and discussions on the road. How much I enjoy the seas and walking around on the beach with no shoes on. How much I enjoy finding hidden meanings behind pieces of art but it's okay. This is me.

So this was a very long blog post and very personal as well so I give you the biggest applaude for being able to read all of this and an even bigger applaude if this helped you in some way. One should always speak the truth especially when the internet is full of lies. Have a great day and look at sky, the sky always has some untold story for you in its behold.

The rebe(l)

​Jag är svag, men ändå stark.

I don't know what draws me to all of this dark stuff but one thing is sure, I love to drive around when it's dark (of course not driving myself, just sitting there enjoying the ride, like in life in general) and all the street lights paint pictures of their own on the road ahead of me. But even more beautiful than streets during the night are buildnings. Especially buildings that happen to be filled with people and voices that echo through the corridors duting the days, such as schools or art gallerys.

Sometimes I've thought of hiding in the toilet or something after the closing time at aquarium, museum or an amusement park. Once I had a meeting at my school late during an evening and I walked through the school alone. Touched the walls, closing my eyes. How on earth could this silent and cold building be the place where all the magic happens? I could hear the conversations about our uncertain futures as I walked my way further through the corridor. I heard our laughters during the recesses during a regular school day and it felt like everything had been frozen, like time had standed still for that moment. And currently I feel like I need to do the same thing one more time before I graduate this spring, because I really need that time in order to gather my thoughts, the building has become a place I love, this is the place where I've learned how the world functions and more importantly grown to finally be myself. It's safe walls and high roof have taken care of me and given me enough space to dream for almost six years now.

And all this came clear to me when visiting a cathedral in Olomouc during my trip to Czech Republic february 2015. I called it the cathedral of love, because for some odd reason time standed still there as well and I thought of more things than I've thought of before. And the cathedral in Rouen helped me to find my way around the city during my trip to France. And talking about France, when the city of lights goes black the rest of the world turns their lights on

PS. When out there enjoying buildings during the night you should make your own playlist to match the occasion, it just makes everything even more existing. "Love me like you do" by Ellie Goulding is a great song to listen to when walking inside those buildnings and when spotting street lights in a autumny city I love listening to "Here with me" which can be found on the soundtrack to the movie Love actually, which is great to watch soon since it'll soon be 5 weeks until Christmas.

​