We are a head taller than anyone else in there

Sister and I are in Prague. We meet at the airport and take a cab to the flat we have borrowed from Dad’s friend. It’s in the middle of town in a cute house with the most touristy, sweet little restaurant on the ground floor.

It’s so hot. It’s the first trip we do together the two of us and we wear colourful dresses and sunhats and almost melt away walking the streets. So we stop at restaurants and my sister eat feta salad and I eat traditional Czech food and we both drink beer after beer.

We are amazed by how beautiful the city are and we try to see some sights but mostly we just talk. That is really why we are here, to talk. We are the same my sister and I. Good and bad. We have an appetite for life and can make people happy with our smiles. We talk loud and walk into a room and own it. We have big hearts and dream big and smile a lot and sometimes we think we can do anything.

But we are also prone to depressions and question ourselves. We sometimes grow tired of being loved and want to hide away from the people that need us. The need to flee sometimes get so strong we want to give up. We give until there is nothing left to give and then we have nothing.

In Prague we talk about all of those things. Of the dreams that never happened and the ones that are still there. Of how amazing it is that we are sisters. Of love and sadness and ups and downs and being us.

On the last night we have talked about it all. So we go out, drink too many drinks and dance. People can tell we are sisters because of the smiles both of us have. The never ending kind. The kind that make people ask what we are on. And that we are a head taller than anyone else in there. And drink like men and swear like sailors.

And on that dance floor, dancing with my sister who understands me so well, the pieces of my heart fall back into place and I know I will be ok. Because love.

With the power to change you

It’s hot. Crazy hot. I’ve left the RV to do a little wander on my own. Need to get away and think. Life is messy and I’m struggling to get things straight and in this journey is a hope to find…something.

I pass by where I know your RV is supposed to be. You sent a text before coming here.

’Come see me when you get there’

And I remember smiling to myself. You have that effect on me. You are like stepping into an adventure. A whirlwind. Spending time with you is losing myself and becoming someone new. Your effect on me is unlike anyone I know. You tear down my walls without even trying. With you I run giggling through HM on Manhattan trying to find clothes to dance big in and hide behind mannequins. With you I have a snowball fights until I gasp for air. With you I dance sober in the street, I stay awake all night talking about my depressions, I dance naked on a boat with a whiskey glass in my hand.

With you I’m 26 and an ice queen and heartbroken and scared of boys and you make me listen to you playing the guitar for me which I hate because it makes me feel and I wake up screaming from a nightmare of being stuck on a boat with you and i tell you and you laugh at me and play me another song until I fall asleep again.

 I walk up to your RV but you aren’t there.

‘He hasn’t been back all night. He is out partying somewhere’ the guy says and I realise I won’t see you today but its ok because I’m here and you are the reason because I never forgot when we met in New York and talked all night and you looked at me and said:

‘There is this magical place in the desert. You have to go there. It’s made for you. You will find what you are looking for.’

And I knew it was true. So I came here. Because of your words and what they do to me.

I wander on. Look at all the people. Feel things fall into place. Things I can’t yet define but will change me forever. I see a golden tent and decide to stay. Have a drink and a dance. By myself. Because this is a place where you do that.

Suddenly arms circle me, I get lifted up into the air and you swing me around and give me kiss on my forehead.

‘Cissi. You are here. I knew I would see you.’

You smile. You look like a desert djinn in white balloon trousers and bare chest, tanned and glittery and somehow I’m not even surprised we ran into each other in a place with 80 000 people because you always show up when I need it, when I’m looking for answers.

We dance. And then you take my hand and take me to your vehicle thingie. ‘I’ll show you everything that is out there’ you say. And you do. You take me to a ball you climb up in and hoist me up when I can’t get there. We go to the temple and leave notes for loved ones. We sit under a shade next to a couple kissing and talk about life. We ride around wind in hair and you make me do the Jack and Rose pose even if I protest.

When we get back to the tent and your friends I hug you. And I know I won’t see you again until I need to. It doesn’t make me sad, it’s what’s supposed to be. Because us is not a love story, it’s not even really a story about friendship.

Us is a story about the people that have the power to change you.

That first time

‘So, what will our origin story be?’ you ask and take a drag on your cigarette. Your eyes twinkle and I know you are flirting. In that way I love. With words and smiles and questions and joining me in my adventures.

‘This. This is our origin story’ I answer and drag you up on the dance floor.

And we dance. For hours. We create our story between smiles, laughs and getting to know each other. You grimace when you realise how much I hate cycling. ‘Now we can never get married’ you say and hours later you come and ask me why. Ask me to give you reasons for hating something you love.

I see you in the corner of my eye all night. See you watching me. ‘I have never seen anyone smile like you, you are so happy’. You say this again and again and when the music change and I get tired you ask me what I want to hear because you want to keep seeing my smile, keep me happy.

So you change it to the music you love and it does make me smile and we dance.

I jump up on the table and you join me carrying an umbrella and I think to myself that this is what I want, someone who joins me in my silly. The table almost breaks under us and we jump off in a laughing tumble and sit down to smoke together.

‘I keep people’ I say. ‘I find the amazing ones and keep them forever’

‘So keep me’. You wink at me and i might feel a tiny butterfly. Its hard to say with all the happiness of the night.

I like that you like me. And I like you. But I don’t know how to do this. How to like someone. So I keep twirling just out of your reach and in the end of the night I go to bed. I hug you goodnight and you look into my eyes.

‘This was a great origin story’

And a part of me wish it was true, that this is just the beginning of you and me.

When I knew we were over

Im sitting in the kitchen door feeling like my heart is breaking. I need you to understand how important this is to me. I look at you but you don’t look back. You are cooking for us and your anger is simmering. That anger you almost never let out but after 4 years I can tell is there.

– Please come. I really need you to come. For me.

I can hear myself choking. I don’t know how to make you understand how important this is to me. How weeks, months, of us breaking apart and discussing over and over again the same things without answers is killing me. I don’t know how to ask you to do this, to give me hope, to make me feel that we are worth keep fighting for.

– Its already been decided. My family will come here. They need me.

You are stirring the food, furiously. I can see how me asking you is getting you all worked up. You want to make everyone happy and once again you have put yourself in an impossible situation. Everyone won’t be happy. Not this time. I need you to come to Sweden with me, to choose me since every day for the last couple of months you’ve been telling me you can never choose Sweden if I need you too. So this become my one hope that just once you will do this for me. Come to my country, to my family, to the place most important in the world to me. I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks how important this is.

But you don’t see. Maybe you don’t want to. You keep telling me you can’t. That it’s already been decided you are staying here. That your sister needs you. That you’ll come next year. Or when we have kids. You will come for the kids.

I start to cry. Crawl up in a ball on the floor and ask you please over and over again. What about me? Why can’t you do this for me and only me? You are hurting and get angry. Tell me that it’s unfair of me to ask that of you. I can see how it tears at you. How the last weeks have made you guarded. How you know you should do this for us but don’t know how. So you take the easy way.

So do I. I dry my tears, get up from the floor and scream at you that ‘you know what, I don’t care. Stay here with your fucking family. I don’t need you anyway’.

Then I go in to the bedroom, close the door and know that we are over.

Walking down memory lane

Out drinking cocktails with Dimitra yesterday. Feel like shit today. As it goes. Great night, great girl and great cocktails though. She said that I seem like someone who has done so much and had so much fun and thinking about it realisisng its true.

I have traveled all over the world, from back packing in Asia and South America to late night dancing in Ibiza. I have walked the Inca trail, danced in the sunrise at Burning Man, got up in the middle of the night to go fishing with some old fishermen in northern Norway, being fed crabs by a Cambodian party of 20, gone to a sober dance party in a nightclub in NYC, drunk vodka with russian oligarchs on a yacht in Croatia, done yoga in the sunrise in Honduras, been taught belly dancing in Morocco, sung a N’Sync song on the radio in the early morning hours in Aland, walked the mountains in Wales, surfed in Sri Lanka, been to a hospital with an infection in Laos, scuba dived, thinking I was going to die but holding the hand of a friend, in Thailand, crashed a wedding in Paris, kissed a much older boy in Italy when I was 16, found a paradise city in the middle of a desert in Brazil, fallen in love in England, sat up all night talking about who I want to be with a friend i haven’t seen in years on a boat in NYC and done off piste skiing in the Alps.

I have moved country and city and lived in 16 different flats. My friends are from all over the world. I have a family that will do anything for me and I think about them every day. I have loved boys that have taught me about knots, live drawing, japanese culture, teas, how to make a wicked boat cleaner, how sleeping next to someone with an open window a warm summer night can make you feel invincible, cornish pasties, weird music, anime, how you sometimes need to cry your heart out, meditation, sailing, how to open your heart, tennis, open mindedness and love. I’m still friends with my ex boyfriends and I will always love them.

I have a dog and a pretty impressive collection of shoes. I have left a book shelf of books in every flat I ever lived. I know how to listen to people and make them smile. Someone once told me I have a hippie heart and that im the best Swede they know for being up for anything and liking everyone. I’m wise and kind. I speak out about things I care about and I sometimes fight with my mum because I love her. I care about people and I know about being sad.

Ive been given flowers by a homeless person because I was sad and crying on the street and an umbrella by a stranger because it was raining. I always give money to homeless people and I once carried an old ladies bags all the way to her flat for 30 minutes.

Wonder what the next 30 years will bring.

 NYC – on a late night roof top party

 Sailing in Croatia

 River rafting in Peru

 Midsummer in Turkey

 Sun bathing in the Hamptons

 Mountain walking in Argentine

 On the beach in Cuba

 On our way to the salt desert in Bolivia

 Scuba diving in Honduras

 On a boat in Honduras

 At a pool party in Cannes

Summer party in the middle of winter in Stockholm

Dancing at Burning Man

Breaking into smithereens

I walk around like a ghost in our home. Me and Woolly both. None of us can sleep and he toss and turn next to me and I toss and turn next to him. I feel very lonely. And so so sad. I cry all the time, everything sets me off. Your scent on the pillow, realising that we will never buy a Christmas tree again and know that its the best tree ever, remembering walks along the river laughing and planning for our life together, knowing that that life will never happen.

‘It will be better’, they say. ‘Its better this way’, you say. I know. I know the pain will fade into lightly coloured memories of us. But right now I dont want that. I want us. We were going to start a family, now we plan to break apart our lives.

I hurt knowing I did this. You tell me it wasnt just me and I know it wasnt. It was us. I still hurt knowing I couldnt keep the happiness of us alive. That my worries and my need for something carried all that doubt in. You say it was for the best and that it would have happened eventually, that you dont want to trap me, that all my worries are valid and you are probably right. It doesnt matter, I still hurt so much i cant sleep, eat or function.

This will be ok, we will be ok and one day we will look at our lives and be very happy at the decision taken but a piece of me will always wonder if we could have been just as happy together.