Notes for students coming back to Finland for the Holidays
Traffic
You’d think getting used to the direction of the traffic takes time. It doesn’t. However, it’s impossible not to feel awkwardly surprised when a driver slows down to let you cross the street – whatever people say, cars and pedestrians are still pretty equal in Helsinki.
City centre
Yes, it’s only been a few months. And yes, there are only minor changes. Why does it feel like you’re watching a movie from a few years back?
Light
Even if the day is nearly as inadequate out there as it is in Southern Finland, the eternal grey clouds that land on the latter sometime in November make conditions seem just that much worse.
Nutrition
If you’re an only/last child to have flown out of the nest, you might come back to parents who eat out/take-away/ready meals more often than your flatmates combined.
Friends
You thought you’d be ecstatic about seeing them. You find yourself panicking: how to summarise “everything” into two words. They want details about everything and everyone that’s been going on, but only if those details are comprehensive, well-formed and compact. And so you end up feeling strange being forced to compress your life into ready-to-consume every-flavour pieces. You’d much rather call up one of your new friends (honestly, how are they new, they’ve been around for at least a month!) to arrange a movie night, or a hang out at the pub, instead.
It’s even more discomforting to realize you stumble every time you’re expected to express how much you missed someone. Suddenly you wish you had been at least a tiny bit miserable out there. It’s not that you forgot them. Or yes, it actually is, because had you not pushed them out of your mind for a while, you could not have made the new friends that now make up most of your everyday life (after studying, of course). It all comes down to who you can and can’t be honest with. True friends will know that you need new ones as well, and that your heart can only expand, i.e. that you don’t have to make room in it by throwing people out. It’s merely time that’s limited, not your feelings.
Unless I get around to writing more before the 24th (unlikely); a mighty Lovely, Jolly and Wondrous Christmas to you all!
Wonderfully put, Sissi. Your introspection on friendship sounds familiar. I think we’re still pretty fine with the small talk format of saying “I missed you” and getting the same in response, without having to construct tall tales about how you’ve been all tears because you haven’t been around your old friends all of the time. I bet everyone understands that of course you haven’t been thinking about them ALL of the time.
Funny thing about traffic, because when I lived in England 15-16 years ago, the English drivers were far more polite than those in Finland. We’d marvel at how thoughtful it was for them to let us cross the street, even if there was a long line of cars waiting behind.
You’re very brave to speak out what probably most people coming home for xmas are thinking and feeling.
And I was genuinely afraid that you’d feel that way about dropping by to see older friends, so I really hope hearing “now it feels like you were never gone in the first place” didn’t freak you out…
Simo: The traffic is pretty nasty, at least in Birmingham. I’ve chosen to ignore the fact that every time I cross the street it feels something short of a suicide attempt, but am glad I’ll probably cross less roads next year living closer to campus…
Katti: I was a bit afraid of it myself, but am feeling absolutely wonderful(ly normal) again, so no worries! It seems the feeling plainly took me – and a friend or two – by surprise, because no one’s ever mentioned anything like it. I’m so glad it passed.