.SOMETIMES RAW.

Everyone’s still so scared of COVID. But come on, people. It’s going to be endemic soon enough. And that has to mean, uh, something. Endemic means freedom, more or less. For some time. Sometimes more, but occasionally less. They say less is more, and that will be the case here. Except when more is less. It means hopefully no more putting on a mask. Also, no more taking it off. You will never have to remember to bring one because you will never be able to forget. Endemic means no more shots and no more boosters. Okay, well, not no more. But like on a regular schedule, when your doctor tells you. It won’t be every few months; it will be, at most, three or four times a year.

It means regular school. With, of course, restrictions regularly in place. But they won’t be that strict. Just regular old strict, applied regularly. And strictly.

It means dining indoors. If you thought all this time that the virus couldn’t get you as long as you were sitting and eating, then you are in luck. Once things are endemic, you will be proven to be just as right and as wrong as you were all along. Masks, of course, need to be worn only when entering the restaurant but at the table, you can cough and sneeze all over your friends.

Endemic means “completely and utterly gone” – is what I might say if I didn’t know what endemic meant and you just didn’t give me that weird look. Which I do and you did, so, um, yeah – we are good to move on, both of us totally knowing what the word means. It means less blurring of the line between work and home. Your house will go back to being a place that just happens to have a desk and computer and a spouse who nags you for typing too loudly. Your office will be the place that happens to have a bed and dresser and a named partner who nags you for chewing too loudly.

Endemic means no more testing. Or it means a lot more testing. Do you know the answer? I, of course, know. I am just testing you.

Endemic means getting together with friends. Wait, sorry, forgot my punctuation – it means getting together with Friends. Or Seinfeld. But not Sex and the City, which doesn’t seem to be streaming. And also not your friend Samantha in your own city, as Samantha’s immunocompromised and even endemic cities are COVID clusters.

It means travelling the world again. But just to Sweden. In any other country, you will need fifteen boosters.

Endemic means a return to crowded places. Like theaters. And then hospitals. Plus stadiums. And then hospitals. And arenas. Followed by hospitals. Very crowded hospitals.

It means no more supply chain issues. And no more inflation. And no more having to pretend your mask makes you unable to talk so you don’t intimidate others with just how much you absolutely know what all of those terms mean too.

It means seeing grandma. At her memorial service, sure. But, you know, also other places. Because endemic means “I see you.” And also ICU.

It means not quarantining for ten days. As for the other three hundred fifty-five days, who’s to say? But for ten days, you should be good. Except if you’re not because you have COVID. Which will be endemic, so be careful.

It means not only putting a period on COVID, but also an asterisk.*

It means the dawn of a new day, in that you’ll be groggy and in your pyjamas and likely hungover.

Sure, we won’t be able to do everything because endemic doesn’t mean freedom. Yes, I know I said it did, but endemic means the freedom to change my mind—if that’s okay with you. If not, I’m not sorry since endemic means never having to say you’re sorry.

The bottom line is we’re all going to die.

The real bottom line is that far fewer of us will die as quickly once things are endemic. Though far more of us will die even more slowly. On the inside.

In the 1938 novel The Conspiracy, Paul Nizan writes: “I was twenty once, and I won’t let anyone say those are the best years of my life.” This sentence always made me feel less lonely. My twenties weren’t the best time either. I spent them thinking they should be extraordinary, exciting and romantic, and I couldn’t make it happen. That decade felt somewhat heavy when it should have been carefree.

I was paralysed by opportunities I wasn’t taking, but how could I take risks in a world already so chaotic? Then I moved to New York… ha! But before, I was scared of not becoming somebody and had no clue which somebody to be. Instead of being me, I got trapped in false identities of my own making.

I thought that every decision would be monumental and fateful, engraved in stone forever. Like I was terrified to buy a house and settle somewhere. I thought I should succeed before I had even started on my journey. I believed this with such conviction that it suffocated me. Any direction I went would be misguided, I felt like I was standing on the platform with everyone around me boarding their trains. And more thoughts such as I didn’t have the right instruction manual, I wasn’t born in the right place at the right time, I didn’t have what it takes to make it, my choices would corner me forever like a marriage I could never get out of.

Since my early childhood, I was told that a couple was always a man and a woman and that they should be together forever. Marriage and fidelity included. My grandparents set the tone: married at twenty and until “death did them part”. For life, then, for better and for worse. Many friends parents’ arguing opened a new chapter in my understanding of the construct until they stopped fighting and the tension at home was replaced by relief and divorce. So I ended up with a shaky view of it all: should I believe in love, and, more important, is it even possible?

And what about good old monogamy? One person there with me through every stage of life, evolving at my side? A comforting theory, but in practice not so simple.

In retrospect, my love life hasn’t exactly been a straight line. It wasn’t what I expected or anyone predicted. It wasn’t always fun, but I have experimented, hesitated and made mistakes to better understand myself. Through the good and the bad, I did things my way.

There were the transitory companions, and partners I loved passionately while knowing I could never live with them. I raised other people’s kids until I met someone with whom I had my own. These partners all watched me grow, encouraged me, and loved me in their way. And I realised that time, longevity, the commitments it entails isn’t everything. These different kinds of love were a spectrum, never the same twice, but never wholly unique either. While the official definition of a relationship once comforted me, my experience has shown me that I contradict myself and am constantly changing.

As if for guidance, I start observing my friends’ relationships more closely and how they get by (alone, as a couple, or sometimes more). In addition to traditional relationships, I see new arrangements hatching. For example, a couple might be together but living apart. Better to have two studios than one big apartment, and a relationship that lasts. I also inquire into their experience with solitude and routine, with daily life. Some openly admit not needing sex anymore. Others affirm their lack of desire to have children: they are happy with the balance in their single life or their relationship, and the responsibility of caring for someone else threatens that harmony. As for fidelity, many tell me that they believe in it and they adhere to it (that reassures me), but also that there is value in keeping some of that intimacy a mystery. And that it is possible and even common to love someone, to fall out of love, and then to fall back in love with them again. Others have their particular way of cheating boredom: for some, it is cheating, for others, it is fighting temptation. Out of all that, I hold on to the advice of the wise Ruth Bader Ginsberg, “it helps sometimes to be a little deaf”, since, in the end, most of my partner’s imperfections are unimportant…. or not worth splitting up over.

At this stage in life, as new romantic opportunities present themselves, I realise some things have changed over the years. I used to want the thrill of love above all else, even if that meant suffering, exhaustion, frustration. It wasn’t just the love of being in love but also probably an attempt to conform to preconceived – and not always accurate – notions of what I thought a love story should be.

Never mind the changes in society and others but what has changed in me? My heart, just like when I was twenty, still want to beat wildly. But I have learned to take people as they come, whereas previously I might have been put off by their flaws, dismissing them summarily if they weren’t exactly what I wanted. I no longer demand perfection because I have learned that we are all fallible.

I had so many fears back then that today I am not afraid. I know that if I don’t reach for it, no one will give it to me. Sometimes all I need is to permit myself. I know that I will never regret my misadventures. And that sometimes failures are successes in disguise. I know that I can take the wrong path and it’s okay. That I must be grateful for what we have. I know to take life one day at a time. That life is what I make of every day. I know not to cry over lost loves. I know how to love and be loved. I know that sometimes I have to shake things up to avoid repeating the same mistakes. And that smiling is one of life’s greatest weapons. I know that something better is always on its way. And that there’s always a light after the storm. I know not to force it if stuck but choose another path instead. Nothing is forever.

*Just kidding. This is only a very small selection of the things I have done to impress others.

1. I learned how to camouflage and blend in. (Successful)
2. I learned how to play the game. (Successful)
3. I learned to hit a baseball. (Successful and unsuccessful because it didn’t get me the date I wanted in 2006 in New York)
4. Got into country music for two years, including buying tickets for a country music concert. (Very successful, but sad because I hate Country music)
5. Took an additional statistics class instead of calculus because more hot guys were taking it. (Incredibly unsuccessful, except that statistics class was where I created my Instagram, which in a way led to later romantic success, so kind of a long-game success situation)
6. Got really good at beer pong in my teens. (Successful: I am still above average at the game so challenge accepted, but sad because I mean c’mon…. beer pong? Really?)
7. Opened up two bottles of wine with fabric scissors. (Very unsuccessful in every sense of the word)
8. Ate a weed gummy bear that turned out to be 70 mg – which, if you aren’t familiar with weed, is way too much; 10mg is like a normal dose for normal folks, I have heard, of course. I threw up next to a church and marched (like in marched march!) 6 km home because I thought the police were watching me and they would be less suspicious if I was marching. (Not at all successful. One of the worst experiences of my life).
9. Cooked quinoa. (Turns out that the nutty flavor of this pseudo-cereal is not the way to a guy’s heart. At least I got some fiber.)
10. Chopped down a tree. (Successful)
11. Got really involved into gardening and nature. (Successful)
12. Watched three Stars Wars episodes (4,5,6) (Successful).
13. Learned all the lyrics to a Johnny Hallyday song in French (Successful in that I did learn the words, unsuccessful in that…. why the f*** would anybody care about that?)
14. Learned not to put twelve tomato plants in one side of a raised bed because it is too much (Successful this year)
15. Build a Polhus Sauna Jussi from scratch. Honestly, I thought I have seen it all when it comes to building things. Especially, IKEA furniture and their bookshelf LEKSFIK. I can build this thing with my eyes closed and all alone, even though it shows two little guys on the instruction pamphlet. The sauna, however, was a little bit more challenging. Challenging to the point that I wanted to burn the entire thing down. Okay, my dad built the sauna, Lina. (Successful)
16. Purchased the book All the Shah’s Men as an ebook because a guy I was texting with for over a month recommended it to me, but never read it becuase I find it very difficult to read ebooks. (Unsuccessful. He stood me up on our eventual date to meet in person. Coward.)
17. Jumped into the ocean full of turtles in Martinique. (Successful).
18. Learned how to make bread. (Successful)
19. Worked out every day. (Unsuccessful and I still cannot do five pull-ups).
20. Read Anna Karenina (Unsuccessful. Hated the book. Didn’t finish it.)
21. Tried to talk less. (Unsuccessful both in my attempt and impressing others. It turns out that if I am quiet people think I am sick).
22. Working on my fifth book which should come out in July/August 2022. (Successful so far)
23. Rocked through Covid once in 2021 (Successful) and in 2022 …. still struggling a bit (Still successful)
24. Signed myself up for a week of fasting and Yoga at a retreat in Austria in April. Should I smuggle in a bootle of wine and some ham? My mom says No! (It will be successful and I cannot wait)
25. Learned how to teach my son 2. Grade Math, German, and we added English (3/4th Grade) because we are quite bored at home. He asked me today, “Mom, can I please go back to school? I am exhausted with you as a teacher!” (VERY successful!)
26. Read seven! books in one week of quarantine. (Successful)
27. Made pancakes with a fever for my son. (He ate them all, I didn’t , so still successful)
28. Actually, made so many things for my son while being sick. Sometimes I don’t know where I get the strength from. (Successful, strong mom)
29. Realised that it is not funny so scream “Corona” when somebody is sneezing while I am down with the Covid. (Unsuccessful, but I will continue doing it when I am back at work, obviously)
30. I told a friend who believed that female sanitary pads went on with the sticky side up – stuck to the vagina for god’s sake – that this is NOT the case and that women use those in a different way. When I reminded him that some women may have hair down there, which would be ripped out with each pad usage, he answered, “Yeah, that’s why I thought periods were so bad.” Let’s worry more what men’s brain space is up to, okay? (Successful, I think. At least I saved one man!)
31. Imagine going to bed in 2019 and waking up in March 2022 and being told what happened in the mean time. A virus will hit the world, where you will find people alone in their cars with a mask on, and this will be normal. You will be terrified to leave further than 2k from your house. You will become your child’s schoolteacher for months as well as their hairdresser. There is a war taking place. Twenty Euro fuel in your car will get you from your front door to the end of your driveway. (Successful)