Here I am! I am crossing the line. Because the past year has been quite difficult and eventful and that it coincides with me reaching the 30 number, I have been thinking quite a lot about the past 10 years. I have to say, I am pleased.
10 years ago, I was celebrating my 20th birthday around a frozen lake in Sweden. Two dear friends of mine had bought food and booze and we got drunk in the cold, in a very enchanting forest that was surrounding the campus of Vaxjo University. I was in the middle of a degree in political science and was about to meet the first love of my life. I had already met my very close friends in college, and those ones are still around, 10/12 years on. The following years were about graduating and trying to figure out what the f**** I wanted to do with my life. After that, it was mostly about collecting a number of very lousy jobs: data collection about Viagra, factory working, sales by telephone, receptionist in a shitty shop (for the ones in France), apple picking (Sweden), customer service, administrative assistant, accounts assistant, PA, data entry (Ireland).
Travels were so important during this decade. I went back and forth to Sweden, visited most of Europe, discovered Japan, Mexico, discovered the midnight sun, ate grasshoppers (Mexico), rotten fish (Sweden), contracted the turista, cycled during weeks in France, got sunburned, got blisters, got lost (a lot), met beautiful people.
I did quite a lot of silly things: organised a (fake) sex group on a football field, spent hours in a computer room trying to figure out how the Internet was working (yes people, at this stage, modems with telephone lines were the rule), lost my apartment keys in 2 metres of snow and had to wait for spring to get them back, lost an unbelievable amount of phones, got sick in taxis, vomited in public places and on my school director's shoes, kissed an unbelievable amount of guys, got drunk a lot, tried drugs, walked home unconscious in the middle of the night (well I still do that though), got drunk because of guys (still do it too), quit jobs and found myself penniless, had to get invited to friends places because I was too broke to buy food, disappointed a couple of people (mostly friends I was not very frank with)...
I learnt a lot: languages, bike repair, accountancy software, how to use a mobile phone (same stuff as for the Internet, the first phone was the size of my hand and the screen was black and white) and also lessons of life. The good people are worth a little bit of sacrifice, the ones not worth it are just to be left on the side, boys are stupid (I sense Julien's comment there), relationships complicated, psychotherapy works, my family is wonderful and religions are definitely not something I am attracted to.
In ten years, I had two important boyfriends, met amazing people (charity workers, my volunteers...), got disappointed, hurt, felt love as never before, I confirmed my feminism, got very militant and then less, my political opinions got softer and more reasonable.
In brief, it was good!
