:: 2002-03-07 :: 7:47 p.m. ::
:: Phone calls ::

I have to now write to you about something that made me forget all the troubles and me going out of my mind and such. Phone calls really have changed my day today - each and every one of them have left me feeling a different way. Maybe it's just a good example how easily things affect me.

First mum called and made me angry and disappointed. I went for a run to banish the bad feelings and to relax. My muscles are tight and stiff after the exercising I did on Tuesday evening. I'm determined to get back into shape after way too many big fat cow months. This however means that I have to go running even when my muscles hurt and so I did. I had planned to do some exercising after I returned but instead of making me feel better the run left me in this 'oh my god I can't believe this is really happening' state and I was ready to crash my head to the nearest wall just to get away from all these thoughts in my mind. Sometimes my mind really is too active.

Then the phone rang. I always jump up when it rings. I'm not used to that people call me here and quite frankly every time the phone rings I'm afraid it'll be someone speaking in french and I have to dig through all the useless information in my brains to find the words and the right order and to get the message through to these foreign people. It requires a lot of energy and afterwards I feel breathless as if I had just ran a marathon. Well in fact if I had just ran a marathon I would be crawling on the floor and begging for someone to just relieve me from all my pain but that's another story.

So the phone rang. And regardless of my doubts that it might be some weird french speaking person I answered. It wasn't some weird french speaking person. It was Nils, the blond boy from Berlin. I do not know how he knew that I needed a call from someone just then. I had been contemplating if I could call one of the volunteers to just hear the voice of a smart person and to tell about my thoughts and things but then I lost my courage somewhere amongst the sweaty running clothes I was stuffing to the laundry bag and decided against this marvellous idea. And then the phone rang.

I didn't exactly drown him in the detailed explanations on how my life sucks and how my mother didn't listen to me or how my mind just can't stop the thinking process even for the night when I'd much rather sleep than be bothered by all kinds of silly thoughts. I also forgot to mention the e-mail I sent him. I'm losing my memory already. But it didn't matter that I didn't talk about all the stuff I actually wanted to talk about just two minutes earlier. It's not the kind of stuff you discuss in the phone anyway. Just talking with him in any case made me feel so much better. It was like a reminder that there are people here in Luxembourg who I can call my friends. People who don't turn their backs if I really really need a shoulder to cry on. We talked about Saturday (because we are going out with some other people) and we talked about crappy e-mail providers and we talked about insomnia. That might not be the most common topic but well if two people who have problems sleeping meet they always talk about the fact that they are two people who have problems to sleep. I know this for a fact. It is not the first time this has happened to me.

So I was actually smiling when I put the phone down and I felt like writing and I lifted my aching butt from the floor where I had sat down to talk on the phone and headed to Adrien's office. I actually felt like whistling and even after the run I just hopped up the stairs so lightly that I couldn't believe it was happening. It's amazing how little things can change the course of your day so dramatically.

Then I decided I'd try to call Regina who will kindly offer me a place to sleep for this weekend to know if she'd be interested to go out as if she wouldn't be I'd be not going either and that would be a bit of a bummer. She was interested however so we'll have a nice (hopefully) party night on Saturday. And then she made my day. She really did.

Last week all the volunteers went to visit her project. She works in this awesome school for handicapped children. We toured around and at one point I was told that there was a Finnish little boy in this school. After the tour I got a chance to talk with this boy, who is called Aleksi. He wasn't able to talk himself but you could see he understood me. He was smiling and laughing. It made me so happy that I could make him happy just by talking to him in finnish. It is hardly a big thing for me to do this, but it means a lot to him. I told the woman who had shown us around that it would be no problem for me to stop by some other time to talk with this boy again if they wanted or his parents wanted. Now Regina asked if I'd like to come along to a little trip the school was organising with couple of classes. Every child must have a person taking care of them and I'd be taking care of Aleksi. She said that I should not say yes just because I feel like I have to, but I actually don't feel at all that it is something I have to do.

I always felt before that I couldn't work with handicapped children. I was thinking of applying to some projects which would've been very similar to Regina's project but then I thought that I couldn't do it, that I couldn't handle it. But when I was visiting the school I realised that I could very well do it, that I could in fact enjoy working in a place like that. And if I ever get to study art therapy I might very well end up working in a similar place. So my answer was without hesitation YES. I have to ask Adrien if I can do it and if it's even allowed for me to do it, but I hope from all my heart it is, because I really really want to do it. Besides that Regina told me that the parents of Aleksi had been really happy that I had talked finnish with their son and they had asked for my phone number so that we could meet and I could perhaps talk a bit more of finnish to their son.

I don't know if you understand why this makes me feel so happy. It's just so amazing feeling to be able to do something so little which is in fact something so big. It's wonderful to be able to do something good. Something that makes a big difference to a life of a little boy who can't talk and is bound to a wheelchair. It's not only that it makes difference for him to hear his mother language. It makes difference to me too. After working 10 months in a project which by all means is a good project and important in its own way I still sometimes feel like I should've chosen a project where what I do would really matter. What I have now to show from all of my time here is a bunch of funny videos I've done, but the meeting with this little boy probably changed me more than the whole other time I've spent in Luxembourg. And the day when it happened I was having the worst headache since I came to Luxembourg but for those moments when I was crouching beside this boy and talking to him about all silly things and how he was actually the first finnish person I've talked to in Luxembourg who also lives in Luxembourg and when he looked at me all bewildered because he couldn't believe that it was finnish he heard, I had no headache at all.

So I should now be thanking Nils and Regina for making me feel so damn good that I could cry. I can't wait to see them both on Saturday. I will just give them big hugs and squeeze them tight because they are so great. I will miss this bunch of volunteers so much when I have to return to Finland. They have been my family here. They ARE my family here. They are amazing.