Near King's cross, last autumn, snapped by Milla

Helsinki has indeed made me laugh and cry and yell and scream. I haven't escaped from rainy nights or silent moments, but I've gotten bits and bobs here and there that could be mistaken for small adventures; walking in the rain at 4am to hop into a car that was made decades before I was born and meeting a parisian boy with whom I talked politics and all kinds of nonsense while struggling to find the right words.

I can't put this into words so I'll turn it into a list: Barcelona, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Bordeaux, Lyon, Nice, Marseille, the scary unknown for a month and hearts racing.

I'll be saying my I miss yous tomorrow, the last ones at the airport on Thursday, but I know some of them will get stuck in my throat. I'll be leaving unfinished things behind, like I always do. One day I'll learn to leave properly.

When I come back it'll almost be Autumn and things will have changed but not very much after all. Perhaps I will have changed. But not that much after all.

Eight days until my plane takes off from Helsinki-Vantaa. My last Helsinki-days so far have included cigarettes, cheap clothes, Hämeentie in both directions and a constant need to push some people away while pulling others closer.

I'm hoping Helsinki will bring me enough heartache and misery and overwhelming feelings in the eight days to come so that I won't miss it too much during my time away.

I can't get any sleep so I'm staying awake.

I'm going to take a time-out from this life of mine, first 500 km away from Helsinki, then switching to a location 120 km away. Feels good to let things go for a week, I'm especially looking forward to the 120 km one: a good road trip and a few laughs.

Running for the thrill of it, I suppose.

I bleached and cut my hair and bought Paris from a clothing store for 18€.

I daydream about Paris-Sorbonne whenever the city I'm in tastes like dust and bones. I regret not taking the steps needed to alter this situation, I regret it every morning. No amount of sunshine is going to change that.

Sunday mornings when days become mornings and evenings become days. It's already dark and I'm rearranging furniture and wearing ugly 90's mom-jeans and an ugly beanie and feeling irrationally lonely. The bruises on my legs are starting to fade and I recall the time when I believed that the healing of an injury meant the end of an era. I bet it still does but I'm not aware of it yet.

Lola vs. Powerman & The Moneyground is making me feel like I'm on a journey, a long way away. It's such a cliché but I'm yearning for Berlin in Spring and Southern Europe in Summer. There's a long Winter ahead but it's all going to be alright.