Odyssey

(An old blurry picture by yours truly)

Life is a journey, not a destination. Old saying, yet always as precise.

I am very happy, that my younger - and elder - siblings have found love. For the first time in our adult-lives in our mutual gatherings involve the life-companions also. At first I dreaded it, since it's been the four of us for so long, but it also warms my heart, that they have found love, and I feel that they are safer now. Like I don't have to worry about them as much. I do not know if that makes any sense, but I am glad that they are happy - it makes me happy as well.
And truly, my hand on my heart, I can admit, that I am content by being by myself. I am as content as a sleeping cat. I could not desire for anything else. I eat, I sleep and my life goes on in its own pace day after day. The significant changes are subtle, slowly forming into a larger pictures. I can't see what kind of pictures I am forming, but I have an image in my mind, what I would like to make. I can only keep hoping to achieve that image, and just concentrate on shaping my future as well as I possibly can.

Either way, I feel content right at this moment. And relieved. It's a relief to see happy, smiling siblings. I do worry about them. As if their happiness in their own lives would define in a larger manner my own happiness. Some psychologists might have some interpretations about all that, but I keep hoping for my siblings happiness to continue as long as possible. They are all I have.

The subject of journey came to mind from all this. And so I immediately thought about the story by an ancient Greek Homeros; "Odyssey". That story became known to me when I was maybe a ten years old. I saw some movie about Odysseus, and I was at the same time terrified by the monsters and also fascinated by the story and all the gods and mythological beings. It was a window to a world more wondrous than the image of wooden cross and forced graces.

Years went by, but I never forgot that film or most of all; the impression it made. Few years back I happened to bump into the book in the local used-book bookstore. The book was cheap so happily I purchased it. After I started to read it, I sadly noticed, that to understand its contents I would have to get an old-Finnish dictionary. It contained so many words that we don't use anymore. It was fascinating in a sense, but also I couldn't read it no further. So reading Homeros's "Odyssey" has to wait.

That notion about "forced graces" reminded me, that I must share with you some of the tales of my school-life, since today I got to reminisce those years and those horrifying teachers with my younger siblings. I am sure everyone has their own tales, but I cannot believe how bad errors of judgement have been made, and no one even knows about those things except all the students who have grown into adults now. I didn't even get to see some of the old "legends" that would at those times really sink terror into my mind. Today, of course, we simply laugh at the memories, but since I am interested in studying to become a teacher, I also find these experiences very enlightening.