I sud­den­ly re­mem­be­red a small, see­ming­ly unim­por­tant in­ci­dent from my yo­uth. I was about twen­ty and al­re­a­dy awa­re of my in­na­te im­pa­tient rest­les­s­ness, which I con­ti­nue to feel oc­ca­si­o­nal­ly. “Where should we go?” I of­ten as­ked then and still do to­day.

My good friend An­na-Kai­sa was ea­si­ly per­su­a­ded to come along on my jaunts. She was al­wa­ys re­a­dy to turn eve­ry­day life in­to an ad­ven­tu­re. The ea­siest way to do that was to tra­vel. That time we de­ci­ded to go to Kuo­pio. I do not re­mem­ber anyt­hing spe­ci­al about that trip, but I am sure we had a good time with the ea­sy­going pe­op­le of eas­tern Fin­land.

I re­mem­ber, ho­we­ver, that on our way back we ba­re­ly mis­sed hit­ting a moo­se on the road. We stop­ped on a la­ke­si­de lay-by to catch our bre­ath af­ter the fright. We tal­ked about what could have hap­pe­ned and re­min­ded each ot­her how im­por­tant it is not to have sin on our cons­cien­ce.

We then wal­ked down to the shore to mar­vel at the be­au­ti­ful sun­set that tur­ned the lake sur­fa­ce in­to gold. A mid­d­le-aged lady al­so came to the shore and be­gan to talk to us. She had no­ti­ced the hap­pi­ness in our ey­es and wist­ful­ly said she would love to be yo­ung again. “Oh, the good old ti­mes!” she said with a nos­tal­gic sigh.

As we con­ti­nu­ed our jour­ney, we won­de­red about her wist­ful­ness. We were hap­py, for sure, but ot­her­wi­se our li­ves were just nor­mal. What was it in adult­hood that made pe­op­le ye­arn back to their yo­uth?

But it so hap­pe­ned that a coup­le of weeks ago I found my­self thin­king, “Oh, the good old ti­mes!” Some time pre­vi­ous­ly our ol­dest child, who li­ves in Ro­va­nie­mi in nort­hern Fin­land, had as­ked me to come and vi­sit her. I said I would come la­ter in the fall. Sec­ret­ly, ho­we­ver, I be­gan to plan my vi­sit right away. I con­tac­ted her room­ma­tes and bo­yf­riend to find out a sui­tab­le sche­du­le. It was ex­ci­ting to plan a surp­ri­se. Pac­king my stuff, I al­most felt like going ab­ro­ad.

When I got to Ro­va­nie­mi, I had a very warm wel­co­me. I felt I had tra­ve­led even furt­her than ab­ro­ad. It was as if I had tra­ve­led 20 ye­ars back in time to my own yo­uth, when I sha­red digs with some friends. It was as if I had been sit­ting at the tab­le in cand­le­light with my own friends, tal­king and laug­hing. Such won­der­ful, ge­nui­ne yo­ung be­lie­vers!

I won­der if our me­mo­ries grow swee­ter over time? Thin­king back, I feel that when I was yo­ung, I had no wor­ries and hard­ly any res­pon­si­bi­li­ties. I gu­ess I most­ly wor­ried about my nose being too big or, if I blus­hed, whet­her the co­lor on my cheeks would di­sap­pe­ar soon or stay for the whole eve­ning. I might have felt a bit wor­ried about a Swe­dish test at school, but quick­ly for­got all about it if there was so­met­hing more fun to do. And there usu­al­ly was.

If I re­mem­ber cor­rect­ly, we of­ten spent long eve­nings sit­ting around a bon­fi­re, tal­king, sin­ging and laug­hing. Sheer id­le­ness it was. It might have been due to that id­le­ness that we had end­less ener­gy to plan all kinds of prac­ti­cal jo­kes. We did not have much, nor did we need much. It was enough to get so­met­hing to eat eve­ry day, and we li­ved on very lit­t­le. Sure enough, we nee­ded some mo­ney to go so­mep­la­ce el­se whe­ne­ver we had a bout of rest­les­s­ness.

Af­ter my trip to Ro­va­nie­mi I felt good to re­su­me my eve­ry­day life and res­pon­si­bi­li­ties. I mar­ve­led at how rich my life is now, though it is ne­ver id­le. There are, ho­we­ver, mo­ments when I feel free from wor­rying – when I re­mem­ber that the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her has pro­mi­sed to take care of all our wor­ries and bur­dens.

It is re­al­ly nice and in­te­res­ting to get to know pe­op­le who are im­por­tant to our own child­ren in yo­ung adult­hood. It is al­so ex­ci­ting to get to know some pa­rents of those friends. I en­joy the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see glimp­ses of yo­ung pe­op­le’s life through our child­ren and their friends. I can then sit back in my roc­king-chair and sigh, ”Oh, the good old ti­mes!”

Text: Vir­pi Mä­ki­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen