31.05.2011.

B-Day’s Discovery Channel

I am turning 20! The second decade of my life has officially started. You know I have never liked birthdays. For some reason they always have liked with disappointments, bad mood and even tears. So some time ago I stopped to celebrate them and it was fine with me. Nobody made too much of a deal of it (Except Lasma of courseJ), people barely remembered.

And here comes another truth. Birthdays is your one special day which kind a shows what kind of a person you are. How many greeting you get, how many long forgotten persons do remember about you? I think it shows how nice of a person you are. And when your greeting count is little it gives you more disappointment than idea that “you do not want to make a big deal of your birthday”. The truth is that no matter how much antipathy you have for this day you will more hate to be forgotten.

I was never the most popular person more like distanced from everyone. I kept myself in a safe zone where I wouldn’t have to risk being friendlier than it was needed. But almost a year in abroad has changed me- it has forced me to adapt faster, to let people in.

And it is overwhelming. The little things I experienced today. My morning started with a “birthday breakfast”. Something I had for the first time in my life. Mia came to stable early and brought me breakfast. We drank coffee and talked about schools and exams and sea sickness (since we bought are the lucky ones to have it), fears and lots of other stuff. I learned that it is something you do naturally, like a tradition. In our family we ate breakfast together like three times a year. So it sound pretty impossible but nice I have to admit. And it is a tradition I will have to bring in my family as well.

Lotte greeted me from the morning as well. She give me my present and four big Danish flags ( It is like a tradition in Denmark to use and give their flag in birthdays and pretty much at any celebration). She took these flags and put them by stable door and inside arena door. A simple gesture, but then again simple moments like this make your life worth living for. It made me feel special.

But day at work was a bizarre. Nothing seemed to go quite as easy as I would like it to go and I almost lost my hope for having a perfect birthday. There was a bizarre with changing the fields and putting a new horse in the pack in which we didn’t succeeded. My boss had to point out more things than in this half year together. I felt like a wreck by the time I was finished and had to go eat without a shower. But…

I got few messages by phone and dozen cyber net greetings, a phone call from my sister and of course a phone call I admit I was waiting the most- my other half my best friend. She can turn my mood up by just laughing. Ou I love you so much! I got few very nice presents and finely a call from my parents. And no matter how much I would tell myself I didn’t care that they wouldn’t call me I was very disappointed that by almost nine in the evening they haven’t called me yet. And then a moment before I was about to take a shower my dad called me. I did however noticed that the conversation went on and on about them. But that’s I guess is a way of coping with our bad relationships when nether one of us know what to really say.And my dad sounded even nervous. But I realized that I liked it that way. In some way I feel more grown up when I don’t have to explain my every move and that my "I know all" dad turns out to be a simple human being. So I did not said anything that would compromise it- even tiny little lies that cover my education. I was too tired to fight in the only conversation we had in months and I am happy for them. as long as they don't start to live my life for me- I am okay with this chit- chat once in 3 or 4 months.

Frankly my mother is a different story. If my dad manages to ask few questions about me as well then my mother would give me a description about bed mattresses. And you really should buy one! You know it is really good for your back! We bought this amazing mattress. And then the conversation went on about plastic plates my dad had bought a day before And what else is new here? By then I had an inside giggle: “I never asked what’s new at their life!” (Not that I don’t really care it’s just that she calls me one time in four moths and gives a description about mattress. You have to admit that that is weird and funny in the same time, but then again my mother can’t be taken serious if you do you might want to kill her) And at the end of the conversation I gave her advice how to rise my youngest sister (she is 12 and goes and does whatever she wants) Well 20 did change things! Suddenly I am capable of giving an advice for my mother on how to be a mother. (Not that I couldn’t give it her before) But I sounded more grown up to myself when I explained something so simple in my eyes. And I might be a good mother one day as well.

I enrolled in a distance learning course in freelance journalism. I made a major decision in my life. I feel like my second decade has started on good note. (Well technically it is the third decade:))

It feels like a good beginning and a good birthday. But really this day showed me the person I have became in the past year, things I have learned and the direction where I am heading. And the person who became 20 today and I discovered moment by moment is a person I actually like to be.

And for those who hate their birthdays- do not imagine this day perfect because it will never be. Things will go wrong (it was a bizarre at work today) but there will be nice moments too- so make them count by remembering them. We can’t change the world but we can change the way we look at it. Happy birthday to everybody!

25.05.2011.

Home is where your heart is...

I used to come to Copenhagen and feel different. I used to walk streets of Koge and have this certitude that everyone knows I am different- I am not from here. Although everyone seem to be okay with the fact that I am non- Danish speaking person, some even found it very attractive still I felt like I quite don’t belong. And it wasn’t like I didn’t like it, most of the time I found it funny and refreshing. I used to make an excuses I wasn’t from here- so I didn’t had to speak or really understand them speaking. I had an excuse to not know towns, roads and buses.

Yesterday I went to shop to buy some batteries for my mp3 and I cashier started to speak with me. He asked for a change because he didn’t have anything to give me back. Even if I didn’t understood the words particularly I understood what he meant. And when he was waiting for me to answer I told him the same phrase I wear like an old sweeter (the one who protects you, makes your excuses). But I felt guilty and to be honest I no longer felt different. The society had accepted me- I had adapted and changed so much that I no longer felt like someone from abroad- I felt like Danish.

It is frightening in the same time- almost too easy to become someone else. Or am I? It is almost too easy sometimes to forget from witch country I am originally, almost too easy to dress myself in this new mentality.

I live here for 9 months now. And it make me wonder- is it possible to be born in the wrong country? And if not do I betray my nationality by finding my heart elsewhere? I grew up in a society who hasn’t forgot that they have been captured and they had to fight their freedom. And with “national patriotism” as a mantra we were brain washed. There is no better place than home, but isn’t home where is your heart? I think it took me all this time to get over this “if you leave Latvia you are lost and mole”. Now I can look back knowing that they was wrong and right in the same time.

There is nothing for me back in Latvia. I have found happiness (as corny as it sounds it is true). I belong outside Latvia. Am simply born in the wrong dot on the map and leaving is best I could ever do. But this cure doesn’t work for everybody. Most of them were meant to be born inside and their hearts do belong there. My home is somewhere else.