When I was recently in their country, one thing I’ve appreciated about finns was that they usually say “Kiitos” when they are getting out of the bus where they had been traveling.
It’s such a sweet behaviour! I always looked at it as finns were thinking that bus drivers are angels who have the mission of bringing them safely to their destination.
And besides, I love so much the sound of this finnish magic word, “Kiitos”!… So cuddly it sounds!... As also that word, “Mitä”, which I've also heard so often in their mouths.
Every time I have heard them said “Kiitos”, I wandered even if the bus driver would listen to them. I reckon it’s not important if bus drivers listen or not. People still say “Kiitos”, anyway. So they can have their consciences clean.
I’ve had several bus trips in Finland. Never alone. Always with the companionship of my personal angel, a second one besides the regular bus driver. Second but the most important one.
And not only bus trips but also tram, expresso bus, train, metro and ferry trips. And rides on private cars. All this thanks to my personal angel. To whom I must say “Aitäh”. Always and forever.
Aitäh, because I’ve got from this angel of mine this above described “full package and services”. But it was not for free.
I had to get there, in Finland, in the first place. And I’ll have to pay that in the next months or even years. Perhaps with slave work. And if I even have the chance to get it. But that I knew it before deciding my departure. It was and still is a risk I gladly took. My angel had often invited me to go and meet her. How could I think twice then?...
"I need you here by my side", she repeatedly told me... Until I could not hold myself back anymore. Any arguments of mine to not going seemed like excuses I invented to myself.
I looked at my credit card and said to myself, what the heck, this is going to be useful for something. If needed, I'm going to spend my available sold like there is no tomorrow. I know, it's a very foolish way to act and think...
I also gave this angel my time. More than a month of my life. But that I got back as well. With large interests. Although, I missed some fine opportunities to make my life more sustainable by not staying in my country, Portugal.
I tried to help this angel, whenever possible. We were both cleaning lady and sir, sometimes. Finn house owners seem to see in my angel a great human being. But I doubt if they really know her immense value, like I do.
I went with her to some direct selling companies events, too. On which I was not of great help, because I felt somehow reluctant to give my time to these. I was there not totally available to other people, as it would be supposed of me to behave.
I went also to some social events. To gatherings at some friends houses. Where despite of always had been welcome by people, I felt sometimes uncomfortable. Because I was for some rare moments separated from this personal angel of mine. And had to share her attention with others. When in a selfish way I would like to have all her time to me.
I’d like to escape with her to a desert island, just the two of us. But I reckon it would be asking too much. I don’t have the power or the merit to ask or desire that.
And besides, I don’t know if the Helsinki bus card that she said for me to keep it - in case I would be able to use it one day in the future - if its credits will be worth for anything on any of the hundreds of desert small islands of Finland. Or that idyllic small country to the south across the Baltic sea.
Someone wrote "givers have to set limits because takers never do". I know how takers behave. I’m a taker, as well. But at least as a taker I know how to be grateful. I often say “
Kiitos” to my givers. And when I’m one of those, a giver too, I don’t set limits while I have still anything of mine to give.
Unfortunately for myself, I'm a poor man. Like Saint Joseph, the father of Christ, was too. The financial resources that were available for me to put my hands on sold out too quickly. Due to some several bus and train trips. That I didn't foresee it in advance, before my arrival at this mythical Vantaa airport.
To my angel I have been every since my first day in the land of the thousand lakes a burden. As far as our food supplies were concerned, she always was doing the major efforts to buy these. But there was more expenses which my presence in her daily life brought to her.
I purchased my Lisbon-Helsinki two-way flight ticket with a return date that would allow me to pay the least as possible. Still in Lisbon, my almost random choice was November, the 10th. I calculated all my money would last for staying about a month.
We thought afterwards, while I was already in Lahti, of changing this return date to some day after this last Christmas, at the most. But this change would cost me an amount of money that wouldn't be available to me anymore. Not to mention that my angel would be forced to spend more and more resources with me, as well as her. And this angel is not a rich one, either.
I had to leave my angel to stay alone, once again. This was hard for me to do but even more for her to accept. The expectations I raised on her about me were defrauded. That's a thing she has never forgive me. And she's completely right.
I suffer from being apart from her. But that's nothing compared to what she has been standing for. Nothing. I feel like being this self-assumed monster mentioned by the divine
Clarice Lispector, this wonderful mixture of a member of a Lithuanian Jewish family, born in Ukraine, raised and lived most of her life as a Brazilian citizen.
I have my moods, that’s right. Everybody has them. U2, my sweetest angel. And I won’t say anything more about it.
You say you’re not a thing to be thrown away. It's only fair. No one is. I’d like to think neither am I.
Aitäh, kallis ingel. I feel I must have went out of the bus now. But I don’t know where I am. Or where to go from here. Anyway, I will figure it out alone. One more time.
I’ve had one of the most happy semesters of my life, ending at the same time as this year of 2015. Kiitos!
Kiitos, as well, for the inspiration you gave me to write these pathetic lines today and some of the posts since the end of June. And a New Year is knocking at the door, already.
I wish at least we could stay good friends in 2016. But I'm afraid my words - any words that I may pronounce, whatsoever - will not be understood no more.
The monster that I am is going to start to ask his forgiveness directly to the gods. Not to angels. I often used to say I am an angel too. Now, I've been expelled from paradise. I'm the only one to blame. And that's not the first time it happens.
Should this be what christians call an "Act of Contrition"?... Well, this is me. This is my wonderland. This is my life.