Text: Hel­mi Yr­jä­nä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

I was ma­king no­tes for this blog post af­ter ele­ven p.m. on Sun­day eve­ning. I was ex­haus­ted af­ter a busy week, but I sud­den­ly found my­self hum­ming with hap­pi­ness ins­te­ad of mo­a­ning with fa­ti­gue.

The week as a trai­nee te­ac­her had squ­ee­zed me dry. I of­ten had to start wor­king at se­ven in the mor­ning, and there were still things to do late at night. I had al­so pro­mi­sed to ba­by­sit for the wee­kend in a fa­mi­ly I did not know. All through the week I wor­ried about the wee­kend. When you are there for the child­ren, you should be 100% alert and pre­sent.

My wee­kend tur­ned out to be a lot of work, but ot­her­wi­se it was won­der­ful. I gat­he­red to my­self all the ge­ne­rous­ly gi­ven hugs, ca­res­ses and tick­les. It might have been hard to get through the wee­kend wit­hout such abun­dan­ce of clo­se­ness.

I surp­ri­sed my­self when I ag­reed to go and vi­sit some friends af­ter the Sun­day ser­vi­ces. It had been a while sin­ce I had been to any­bo­dy’s home, and the last time was with on­ly a small group. I thought I could ma­y­be stay an hour and then go home. But surp­ri­sing­ly, I sta­yed un­til close to ele­ven.

Sit­ting around a tab­le with many ot­her pe­op­le, I sud­den­ly re­a­li­zed I was hap­py. I felt I was in the best pos­sib­le place. I was not ti­red, and I did not feel an­xi­ous among those pe­op­le. For the first time in a very long time I laug­hed out loud and long and free­ly. I did not lose cont­rol comp­le­te­ly, but I felt free to laugh. I felt I be­lon­ged there, though I did not say much. Whe­ne­ver more than five pe­op­le are pre­sent, I usu­al­ly lis­ten rat­her than speak.

Wal­king back home, I smi­led to my­self. I was so hap­py that it felt qui­te spe­ci­al. My life had been so dull and or­di­na­ry for such a long time that the fee­ling of hap­pi­ness jol­ted me awa­ke.

The fee­ling brought to my mind how, du­ring my first fall at Opis­to, I tried to write about hap­pi­ness on three oc­ca­si­ons. I don’t know exact­ly why none of those texts were comp­le­ted. But the fact that the to­pic was hap­pi­ness tel­ls so­met­hing about that ye­ar.

One of the draft texts be­gan like this:

”I am hap­py.

Hap­pi­ness is a be­wil­de­ring fee­ling. It is hard to desc­ri­be hap­pi­ness with words. So­me­ti­mes I just have this fee­ling: You know what? I am hap­py!”

That was pre­ci­se­ly how I felt when I wal­ked home that Sun­day eve­ning.

For a coup­le of ye­ars, I was cons­tant­ly ti­red. I very sel­dom went to haps with the ot­her kids. Crowds of pe­op­le made me an­xi­ous. I par­ti­cu­lar­ly re­mem­ber one eve­ning in a place where I hard­ly knew any­o­ne. I felt very un­com­for­tab­le and went ups­tairs alo­ne to cry about my an­xie­ty.

It is com­for­ting to re­a­li­ze that life con­sists of dif­fe­rent sta­ges. Some are lon­ger and may last for anyt­hing up to a ye­ar, while some ot­hers are over in a week. Thin­king back, I sur­vi­ved my ye­ar of fa­ti­gue qui­te well. The lock­down was ac­tu­al­ly a re­lief. With fe­wer so­ci­al con­tacts, I had the ener­gy to en­joy the im­por­tant mo­ments of to­get­her­ness with my fa­mi­ly and my clo­sest friends.

Right now my life is full of sig­ni­fi­can­ce. It feels good to be my­self. My weeks are fil­led with stu­dies, sin­ging, friends and fa­mi­ly. The an­nu­al mee­ting of our choir gave me a small duty. I feel good to know that the ot­hers trust me.

An old song that we have been sin­ging this fall has re­al­ly touc­hed me. The words seem to ad­d­ress a ti­red per­son who is pra­ying for pe­a­ce and to en­cou­ra­ge them to close their ey­es and sleep. I had he­ard the song be­fo­re, but the words re­al­ly hit home now. The first time we were sin­ging that song, the words touc­hed me so deep­ly that I could not even sing.