Don't tell me I'm naive

When I sat at the bus waiting for it to take off my eyes got stuck at a blinking lamp at the wall outside the window. The lamp was pink and had the shape of a square. I'm sure it's been there since the 80's. I stared at the lamp and listened to the almost inaudible sound of a crackling radio that I located from the speakers above me. The crackling and the blinking made a rhythm. This would be a great starting scene in a film, I thought. For a while I forgot that a sat at the bus taking of for work. I was only thinking about what a great film could come out of this scene.

The moments when my brain start to think creative like that are few. I've been working constantly for two months now. At work I meet only people with problems, trying to solve their lives. I get the feeling that in this small world that I share with my workmates only contain two groups. Those who have succeeded with there life and those who have not. To succeed is to have a more or less well payed job, to have somewhere steady to live, to be able to save money to the retirement and to consume clothes and jeweleries and a nice dinner every now and then. Not to succeed is not to have a job, not to have money to spend, not to be shore about where to live next, and most of all; not to bee ware about the seriousness in the situation. There are two groups according to the climate where I work; the employees in the office and the clients.

To have to work and live in a discourse that serious about life really affects me. I start to think like it. I try to structure my life according to the plan. But it only ends up in one way. I keep on identifying myself as the clients more than the employees. It wouldn't bee a problem if it wasn't for the discourse; that I've failed if I don't live in a secure world with a steady salary and somewhere to life for the next few years. I don't want to be like THEM, will I?

With this discourse in my mind there isn't much time for dreaming. That makes the blinking lamp and the crackling radio at the bus quite amazing. The thought about my dead dreams reached me today, when I took a walk in the forest at lunchtime. I was trying to find a topic to start write about but my brain was empty. I started to construct sentences in my head but I only found pieces of story's that couldn't be put together. A few ours of puzzling and I actuality started to put sentences together. My head started to wright about my life and my dreams. I was the topic I'd been looking for. I knew I was close to something great.

The few times when I've told my colleagues at work that I want to be an author, they've only laughed at me. One said: "you sound like our clients", another asked how I'll be able to support my life economically. Is a matter of fact; it do exist other groups of people. They are few tough. It's a great effort to risk the halfboring life of security for the dreams.

Now that I've started seeing every second of my life as a part of a story, I feel more alive. It's only when my creative mind is wide open that I feel my life being closer my dreams.

I'm gonna live a happy life, working as a writer, living as a poor.

Only if I want to see it I'm not so far from there.

This summer l'm going to send my book to the publisher.

Wish me good luck.

Text: Jennie Åström

Photo: Sebastian Estay