I’m sitting on the bus to Arlanda.
It has been raining for the past few days and the tears are still falling on the window of the bus and on my cheeks.
I have been imagining this moment for so long that it doesn’t seem to be real. I remember myself rolling from side to side in bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking I have only two weeks, one week, four days, three, two… one day left in Stockholm.
And every time I was imagining myself leaving, saying bye, closing the door of my room, taking the metro.
It was there, so close to that moment that I could almost feel the weight of my big suitcases that I would tow…
But then I would open my eyes.
Silhouettes of a chair and a table in the dark. I was surrending to the reality of my dark room.
I was still in Stockholm.
And now…
Now I’m finally leaving. For good.
The bus is passing by the lonely City Hall and the faded buildings and the grey sea blurred by the water of the sky and of my eyes.
So, good bye, Stockholm.
“Hej då”.
I’m going to see you again.
Soon. Some day. Some time.
But wait…. Am I really leaving?!
For the moment that all is too fictitious.
I’m not on the bus to the airport, I’m not leaving!
I will wake up tomorrow in my room in Lappis.
I will take the same road to the metro station, through the field with the cows.
I will have a coffee and a pie in Södermalm.
I will sit in the sun by the sea…
Or not?..
We all left a part of ourselves in Stockholm and we’ll come back to find it. Maybe just not tomorrow.
Photo by Nathalia Mikhalkov
