Song: Cold War (Nick Am Remix)
I left Linköping Sweden in haste, moved to Berlin and convinced myself that the last stop would be London and I would make it home. It wasn't home for me. It was a damp expensive place I still couldn't be myself. So I moved back 'home' to Southern California. I convinced myself that I needed to move in with my parents and become a Cali surf bum. If you know me, you would say, "Va?" Somewhere between London and a chateau in Paris for a festival, I was so inebriated that in my sleep someone heard me speaking Swedish vehemently, aggressively... then lovingly. You would think I would have known by then? No, I went back to Cali and drove hours to my favourite surf break and tried to form myself into the Californian life, the American dream. Maybe I am the embodiment of the American dream, but all my dreams were realised in Sweden. In that little city in Sweden, I was more me than anywhere else.
So I let myself go to zero. I took my last shillings and travelled to Indonesia, knowing I had nothing to return to and no money once I spent it on that last Bintang. I took myself to financial and mental zero in Indo. I ate, prayed and surfed. In my absolute zero, laying on a surf board, I finally looked up, begging the ocean to support me and said out loud, "I am ready to be me".
I flew back to Cali (I am leaving out that after I said that, I started meeting a bunch of Swedes). All of the sudden I felt the universe align in my nothingness. No ego, humbled to nothing, I picked up my bags and moved back to Sweden. This time to Stockholm.
Fast forward to last week, I am in Berlin for a conference, I am sitting at my best friend's appartment and there is this aching, itchy feeling. "I want to go home." I felt like tomorrow couldn't come fast enough for me to jump on that Ryanair flight back to Arlanda. This my love, is the first time in my life I have ever felt the ache of wanting to be home. I have lived in many places, I have called many cities my home but I have never ached to go back when I went somewhere else. Last week that ache came and when I got off the Flyggbussarna from Arlanda in St. Eriksplan, I walked over the bridge to Kungsholmen, and I was home, I was at peace.
I will never forget the feeling of walking into my apartment, feeling like I have accomplished the ultimate feat, I found my home.
I haven't surfed all month... but I am growing roots into the cold Stockholm archipelago. Did I mention I also found the source of that sound in my heart? It is my company; SciFree.
This journey is far from over, but I am free.
With all my heart, from Stockholm xoxo