One winter morning, inside a beautiful hotel room with a very wide window that has a beautiful view of the snowfall over the Helsinki City Centre, I found myself crying.
“A lot of people back home would kill to be in my position right now. I don’t have the right to cry and be sad”.
You see, this is how I self-sabotage and invalidate myself.
“I can’t cry? Says who? Dammit, I’ll cry whenever I want to.”
But I can’t cry without a reason. I need to process this. Why am I crying? Is it because I’m going back home in a few days? Is it because work and opening your email has been giving you panic attacks and you panic over panicking again? Is it because the guy you’ve been dating for a year failed to show up because of a family matter and you can’t be mad about it? Is it because you thought you’re going to secure a PhD offer but they still sent you a rejection letter? Is it because snowfalls make you happy and sad at the same time (cue Let It Snow)? Is it because you’re feeling nostalgic about how beautiful your experience in Rovaniemi was? Is it because you start to feel homesick and you can’t wait to wear light clothes again?
Fine! All of the above.
Whether I like it or not, I have to go back to the Philippines. There will always be millions of possibilities and reasons to somehow end up in Finland or anywhere in Europe again. That’s just life.
I spent the last minutes of my stay at Hotel Indigo Helsinki Boulevard taking silly photos around the room (for Instagram, of course). I posted one photo and wrote this caption:
its.sher.not.cher
gracias, europa, for making my dreams come true and giving me more new dreams to dream 🥺💗 even if the current state of the world has already made me cynical, i guess i’m still a dreamer after all (i love dreaming, bakit ba?) peace out ✌🏻(for now 😏) #SherlynxFinland
Me, 2021
Moikka, Europa! ‘Til next time! (And I’m still gonna try learning Finnish!)