from a Manhattan emergency room to Santa Claus Land

Okay people, let's have one of those tacky looking-back-on-the-year-just-passed, melancholy reviews. It just has to be done - we have to analyse what we have learned in order to go on.

Year 2005:

Started off with a week in New York. It's scary the way this city just hits you with its beauty and life-loving dynamics even though you are determined not to be impressed - determined to dislike it, even. There is just no way to avoid a knock-out by New York. I particularly remember a vodka pizza in Little Italy, an argument between an Englishman and a Brooklyner who were both buying me drinks, a freezing train ride to Bronx with a cream cheese bagel clutched in my nervous hands, a long surreal wait in the emergency room of a downtown Manhattan hospital. (No, these events had no connection whatsoever, except they all happened in New York and I was there.)

After that week, a visit in a hidden valley in Ireland, a valley deep in its winter sleep. The complete stillness of the mountains after the buzz of the city was another knockout. Then an international move. It was time to leave dreamy, quirky, snobbish, beautiful Cambridge (England), the town of no winter (Cambridge seems too sophisticated for barbarian things like blizzards and sub-zero temperatures), and the gang of funny and slightly demented hotel people I had been working with. A last coffee in Starbucks and then I saw the blue and white of my homeland again - a sight not seen for more than a year, a sight I would not escape for the rest of the year...

So. The rest of the year uneventful. Struggling to find a job, struggling not to hate Finland, struggling to learn languages, struggling to adapt to being home, struggling not to kill my parents, struggling not to feel lonely. Struggling with the man of my dreams.

Skiing on the mountain with good friends again, being out on the open sea and being thorougly afraid and at the same time happy, sitting in front of the fire during the long, white nights of the summer while sipping wine and writing. Building a huge maze as an art project, laughing over the madness of it with new friends. During a confusing autumn, breaking off with my man and building up a new, independent life that has me thrilled although it's not quite what I had in mind.

I have learned to love pesto and mozzarella cheese and to make a fabulous omelette. To dress warmly enough to enjoy rolling in the snow for hours with kids. I have realised the Finnish people are depressed and that I am very, very different from everybody else in the world. Not a bad thing to realise...

And New Year's Eve was not unusual. I had one of my anti-new-year's-eve-parties reactions of course and sulked for a while. Then I was relieved to find the new year was here and I could finally stop pretending to have fun and just relax.

There. I did it. The Summary Of My Year. Now I can finally go and make an omelette.