Lily

The world is my oyster

helsu

per angusta, ad augusta

Let me tell you a story about a person who inspires me the most. The headline can be translated in English with words ”no pain, no gain” which is quite a modern citation. Those are also the words that I would use to summarise the life of my great-aunt (sister of my grandpa).

My grandparents met during either the Winter War or the Continuation War, I’m not 100% certain. Either way, grandma lived in Karjala and grandpa was from Moscow. They both decided to leave their homes and evacuate to Finland. Grandpa also had a sister and a brother who also came with. This story tells about my grandpas sister, we shall call her Olga for now on. 

Olga was bullied all trough her school years, because she didn’t speak proper Finnish, her family was poor and because she wore used clothes. She was discriminated and people called her names like beggar and pauper. One day she decided to fight back and when the biggest bully came to her, she said to him: ”one day I’ll show you. You will be sorry you ever bullied me. One day I’ll drive a car that costs more than everything you own together.”

Well, logically the bully laughed at her face.

But this didn’t have the effect on Olga that the bully might have hoped. Olga graduated, met a man and they started a truck-company together. It was a great prosperity. She started to invest on stocks and bought a couple of apartments across Helsinki which she put on rent. A couple of years later she and her husband sold the truck-company for a quite amount of money. After selling the company she also happened to win the lottory a few weeks later. Like Olga, seriously??

 She also went through tragedies one can’t even imagine but Olga never gave up. She walked through the hell with carrying out buckets filled with water for those who were still burning in the flames. She lost her both children as well as her husband too (not at the same time) but she never lost the ability love. Years later she found another man to whom she’s now engaged. They live in a picture-perfect house, both drive a dream car and they own a villa near to Helsinki in which they spend the summer. She has helped many relatives financially and she has made clear that if I ever needed a place to stay her door is always open for me.

Olga doesn’t talk much about her fortune and I was completely in a dark with this until my mother told me the whole story a few weeks ago. Of course I had noticed that Olga had money but I hadn’t had any idea HOW she had gained it all. I asked Olga about this and she verified the whole story, adding the fact that her biggest bully died in an accident before she had the chance to show off her accomplishments. I couldn’t do anything but admire her for her courage to try even when everybody around her told that there was no way she could succeed. But she did.

She fucking did it. 

Suhteet Oma elämä
helsu

amicus certus in re incerta cernitur

It has been a while since my last post and I don’t even have a reason for it. Or maybe I do, there’s actually nothing going on in my life. The matriculation examination continues and I should be graduating this spring. (although I have one obligatory course missing.. help!!) School is officially over and I should be calculating maths but instead I chose to write. I have a feeling that after my maths exam I’ll be crying but I’ll worry about that later.

A while ago I started to think about the things I’ve done and am proud of. I thought of my academic results and came to the conclusion that ANYBODY could do the same, probably even better. Same with sports. Yes, I have succesfully combined sports, school, work and social life but I know at least 10 people who have done the same. I’ve been through pretty rough times during my life and survived them, yes, but a lot of people have done the same. I’m not underrating the things I’ve accomplished but I simply feel that they’re not the thing I’m most proud of. I’m certain that in my death bed I won’t be remembering my grades or my medals so I deducted that there is something else in my life I should give credit to.

Then, what am I proud of?

The thing I’m most proud of is keeping a promise. The most difficult kind of promise, which is to tell a friend that ”you’ll always be there” for them. To look them deep in the eye and swear you won’t walk away on them, whatever happened.

Sure, it’s not that hard to be there for someone at 2 o’clock in the afternoon when they buy you a cup of coffee and you both laugh together eyes watering from joy. But it’s fucking hard to be there for someone 3 o’clock in the morning when they’re crying to you trough telephone and you’re not even sure if they are alive tomorrow morning. It’s not easy to put your needs, worries and other friends aside and wholly be there for someone. It’s not easy to answer to your phone 2 o’clock when you have school the next day just because somebody needs to hear your voice. But seeing someone truly smile and hearing them say ”I owe it all to you, because of you I refused to give up” is worth it. Every time.

I am proud of never saying ”now’s not a good time, I’ll talk to you tomorrow” to a friend when I’ve known that they have something important they want to talk about. I am proud of not leaving my friend’s side when everybody else did so. I’m proud of helping people around me because I feel like the most important thing in life is to be there for someone whenever they’re in need, to help your friends and to make people around you feel happy. That’s also the main reason we all are on this planet.  

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