Text: Hel­mi Yr­jä­nä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

A few days ago I was bi­king around the town. There is not­hing spe­ci­al about bi­king, but it was spe­ci­al that I was not we­a­ring my ear­pods. I was on­ly lis­te­ning to my own thoughts and things I could hear around me. I he­ard so much bird­song that I did not even hope for anyt­hing more to lis­ten to.

In the win­ter I prac­ti­cal­ly al­wa­ys had my ear­pods on while wal­king. I lis­te­ned to mu­sic, pod­casts or au­di­o­books. The ti­mes when I for­got or just chose to le­a­ve my ear­pods at home were rare ex­cep­ti­ons.

I re­mem­ber well one time when I wal­ked wit­hout ear­pods. I on­ly me­ant to walk to the ne­ar­by mail­box to mail a let­ter. When I tur­ned to go home, I re­cei­ved a mes­sa­ge about a par­cel that was wai­ting for pick-up a coup­le of ki­lo­me­ters furt­her than where I was. I de­ci­ded to go and pick it up right a way. At first I reg­ret­ted I had not ta­ken my pods. But it tur­ned out that du­ring that walk my thoughts pro­vi­ded the best pos­sib­le com­pa­ny for me. My thoughts were so cheer­ful and hap­py that I wal­ked ne­ar­ly the whole way with a broad smile on my lips. I al­so see­med to re­ach my des­ti­na­ti­on in no time even wit­hout anyt­hing to lis­ten to.

For a long time du­ring the win­ter, I was sel­dom ab­le to en­joy the com­pa­ny of my own thoughts. I did not feel com­for­tab­le spen­ding time with my­self. When I was with ot­her pe­op­le, I usu­al­ly con­cent­ra­ted on the si­tu­a­ti­on and the pe­op­le rat­her than the bust­le going on in my head.

I had a hard time being alo­ne. Si­len­ce made me feel an­xi­ous. When there was not­hing or no-one to keep my thoughts in check, they bund­led up, grow­ling and gnas­hing their teeth un­der the stress. Whe­ne­ver I was alo­ne, I had so­met­hing on to lis­ten to. I did no ne­ces­sa­ri­ly lis­ten pro­per­ly, but the backg­round sound soot­hed my thoughts. I was awa­re this was a prob­lem, but there was not­hing I could do about it.

Pro­lon­ged stress and fa­ti­gue af­fec­ted my ner­ves so bad­ly that even so­met­hing tri­vi­al could make me cry. This sen­si­ti­vi­ty to cry was cont­ro­ver­si­al. I felt I nee­ded pe­op­le, but I was ea­si­ly of­fen­ded by things they said, though they me­ant not­hing bad. It was frust­ra­ting to be in the com­pa­ny of pe­op­le who were dear to me and yet to end up hi­ding and crying so­mew­he­re, ti­red and alo­ne. I am gra­te­ful for my sen­si­ti­vi­ty, but such a stres­s­ful pe­ri­od of life would have been ea­sier if I had been less sen­si­ti­ve.

Let us now re­turn to the bi­king trip I was tal­king about at the be­gin­ning. As I was re­tur­ning home, I bi­ked through a park, stop­ped there and sat on a swing. I lis­te­ned to the gab­b­le of se­a­gul­ls and watc­hed the clouds slow­ly mo­ving ac­ross the sky and the pe­op­le pas­sing by, and I sud­den­ly re­a­li­zed that I felt re­al­ly good. It was a re­lief to be comp­le­te­ly at pe­a­ce with my thoughts wit­hout any stress. It was al­so com­for­ting to re­a­li­ze that I was so well awa­re of my own con­di­ti­on that I re­a­li­zed things had imp­ro­ved. Af­ter that bi­king trip I was ab­le to ver­ba­li­ze that fee­ling of mine as being pure hap­pi­ness.

Alt­hough I had a hard win­ter, I al­so ex­pe­rien­ced hap­py mo­ments and found many cau­ses for gra­ti­tu­de in my eve­ning pra­yer eve­ry night. But I had not felt such light­ness and re­lief for a long time. It see­med the spring had fi­nal­ly found its way in­to my mind, dus­ting all cor­ners and ope­ning the cur­tains to sun­light. Right now I feel hap­pi­ness that bub­b­les and boun­ces in­si­de me, pou­ring out ir­re­sis­tib­ly. Being alo­ne, I have not been ab­le to show it to any­bo­dy face to face, so I have tal­ked to my ca­me­ra and sha­red the vi­de­os. I hope I have al­so sha­red a few overf­lo­wing drops of my hap­pi­ness with you by wri­ting this.