Today I got the idea that I would find a couple of places on Googlemaps. First I looked for the place where I lived from the age of six thorugh nine (Göteborg), and then for the place where I lived before that - from birth to six (Stockholm). I still remember the addresses, for some odd reason, so it wasn't all that difficult to find. But... yeah.
There's a saying that indicates that you can never go back. I think it's more a question of it not being a very good idea.
I have so many good and happy memories from those places. I am one of those fairly boring people who seems to have had a perfectly happy childhood, free from traumatic experiences and misery: all I remember is a lot of sunshine in the summers and a lot of snow in the winters. Everything was big and vast and awesome.
Except that it wasn't really.
When I was little in Farsta, Stockholm, I lived in a great big house with lots of apartments. I had my best friends just upstairs from me. Outside was a playground on a hill between two apartment blocks. To the right was the forest. To the left another, smaller playground where a little girl once got murdered. Behind the house was a parking lot, and it was surrounded by a low shrubbery under and in which there were long tunnels where we crawled around on our hands and knees. Soo cool.
Then I moved to Hisingen, Göteborg. Here we had a big playground in front of the houses, with another, if we ventured far enough. There were large stone figures to climb on (two horses, three people, a dog, and a waggon), and if you could climb the largest of the stone men you were totally cool! Behind the apartment block were forests, as far as the eye could see, and my brother and I spent a lot of our time out there, climbing trees, making up stories. A large birch was our pirate ship. Somewhere else, under some crippled firs and yews, with brambles and nettles, was our secret lair. In the winters our father helped us build a snow hut, and he let us sit in there at night with a candle. It was... well, beyond cool.
There is a point to this rambling. I think the point is to look forward and keep the happy memories as just that: memories. Don't go back to see if things really were the way you remember them. It's bound to end in tears. Or some semblance thereof.
I think.
But, you know... I don't remember what the point actually was. Also: I don't care.
At the time of writing (that is now, as in the now that is now as I write this) I am still, as always, unfailingly happy with my life. The way it has turned out.
I never made it big. I never became the famous writer I wanted to be, nor did I become rich. And it's okay, really. I have all I want. I cannot think of anything I want that I do not have.
It's almost spooky.
It's okay.