The Meter of Life

The meter of life has been with me in my thoughts lately.
These are my reflections as I approach my birthday. Last year I turned sixty, and soon another year will be added to my own meter of life.

Read this post in Swedish ->Den där metern i livet

Last year it felt like my birthday lasted for almost a whole week. Gifts, flowers, and gift cards arrived over several days. It was generous, warm, and embracing.

This year it is a smaller birthday. I am not even sure if I will celebrate it. But it is there, all the same.
This year my husband also turns sixty – and that will be celebrated properly. But not yet. That will be later in the spring, or almost summer.

So this birthday becomes more of a place for reflection.

The meter of life

Think how much life changes through that meter I have written about.
In the first decimeters of life, we often live to reach up to the group we belong to – or the groups we want to belong to. We adapt, stretch ourselves, try to fit in.

When you have children, belonging changes. You begin to live more – not entirely in your true self, but closer to it.
And when the children grow up, new paths open. You may not have become whole, but you have come closer to yourself.

The closer you come to yourself, the more safety settles in the body.
And what matters in life becomes clearer.
Do I want this?
Do I belong here?

If it feels right – you stay.
If it does not – you leave.

It is genuinely good to be who you are. And if that is not enough somewhere, there are other places where you are enough.
It is as if the meter of life has become clearer only now, when I have stopped rushing through it.

A year that was allowed to take space in life

A year ago I said: thank you, but no thank you.
I stayed home, because our youngest was moving in with us.

In the beginning, I missed my job deeply. At the same time, it was a relief to leave the shifting schedules and the constant struggle to make free time fit. On my days off, there was always so much that had to be done. I never felt finished. Something was always calling.

Things still call today.
But now I can lean back and think: it can wait until tomorrow.
It will not run away.

I was afraid of becoming lonely. Afraid of not having adult contexts, adult conversations.
But the truth is that there are more adult things in my life now. And I have more consistency. I have more routine now than when I worked – and on the days when I do not have the energy, things do not shout as loudly as they used to.

When values become clearer

All the time that this year has held has made my values clearer.
Today I carry an experience that is more grounded, more secure. The days have given me the opportunity to be more in time, not always on my way somewhere else.

I have found new things.
Like my greenhouse – already now I am planning what I will grow. There is something calming about thinking ahead without stress.

I have taken hold of my writing in a clearer way.
Often there are small people inside me who want to become a story. Some stay for a long time. Some move in briefly. And some say thank you and goodbye after just a few lines on paper. The blog has become important to me in a completely different way than before. Not as performance – but as place.

And I have begun an education.

Living more sustainably – in my own way

I have begun to live more sustainably.
Taking care of the things we already have at home in a different way.

For several weeks I searched for window lights. I looked online, visited stores that sell small lamps, but nothing really suited me. They were not my style – and often far too expensive.

Then one day I went down to the basement. There I found the lamps we had maybe ten years ago. I wiped them clean, along with the cords. I did not do much myself – but my husband connected them. Now they hang in their windows. Two in the kitchen and three in the living room. They give off a soft, pleasant light that feels… like home.

A kitchen table holding both everyday life and quiet richness.

All the pots used last summer have been emptied and prepared. They are ready for the plants that will live in our greenhouse. This year I will grow chili again. We start small – a little lemon chili and a Jamaican bell. I will not grow as many tomatoes as last year, but more cucumbers.

Picking a cucumber that grows in your own garden is a luxury that is hard to put into words.
Taking a few salad leaves, pulling up a carrot, or lifting an onion from the soil.

That is wealth.
Wealth in sustainability.
It is part of the meter of life that is about care, not about having more.

Letting the body take part again

My bathing has become more regular, even though my focus right now is on reclaiming something that has always lived in me – swimming.
It already feels good just to think: tomorrow morning I will go to the pool and swim.

I have begun to shape a goal. Because even if I do not have to, I want to be able to swim those 3,000 metres that the Vansbro swim consists of.
Now in the pool.
Later in open water.

Maybe around the whole lake at home – or who knows, maybe I will actually go to Vansbro and swim those metres.

Time that is enough in life

This year there were also Christmas gifts that were finished in time.
Packages wrapped long before Christmas.
Socks knitted without stress.
A sweater finished for little Hugo.

Books have been read with enjoyment.
Blog posts have been written from the heart.

These are small things, perhaps.
But they are also signs of a life that no longer runs ahead of itself.

Wealth, in a quiet way

I have arrived at a place where I feel:
how good we actually have it.

We have everything one could wish for.
Or at least everything I wish for.

Food for the day.
Rooms where we meet.
A car that works.
A place on this earth where we feel at home.

We have a house.
And when we long to leave, we have our small motorhome.

We do not have money in abundance.
But we have enough. When a new salary arrives, the previous one is not yet spent. We do not have to wait – even though it always feels good when new money comes in.

And somewhere there, in all of that, lives a quiet kind of wealth.
Perhaps this is where the meter of life feels the most whole.

Questions for you who are reading

Where are you in life right now – are you running, or have you begun to slow down?

Is there something in your life that has become clearer with time, rather than bigger?

What is wealth to you, if you do not measure it in money?

If you think of your own “meter of life” – where are you standing today?

You do not have to answer out loud.
Sometimes it is enough to let the questions exist.

AHA

This is not a text about having a birthday.
It is a text about living in rhythm with yourself.
About stopping life in constant readiness and beginning to live in trust.
And about understanding that a good life does not always show – but it is felt.

Reflection

When I look back at the year that has passed, it is not the big events that stand out most clearly, but the rhythm.
How the days have found a different pace. How time no longer feels like something I am behind on.

This year has not been about becoming someone else, but about removing what no longer was me.
Choosing what feels right in the body.
Letting life be enough – and discovering that it truly is more than enough.

Between the lines

This is a text about daring to stay.
About not chasing the next step, the next proof, the next confirmation.

Between the lines lives a quiet safety.
I no longer need to run to be enough.
I know where I belong – and that is enough.

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