Christ in a haystack it’s hot.

(Christ in a haystack is something I have been saying a lot lately, and I have no idea why or where it came from. Could I possibly have heard it in a movie?).

I really don’t want to be that Dane who is constantly complaining about the weather, because that is a tendency among my fellow countrymen that just drives me nuts, but GOOD GOD. It’s like the sun exploded on us. Yesterday, it was 83 degrees fahrenheit, and  no matter where I was or what I was doing, the sweat was dripping from my forehead. Inside, outside, eating, drinking, peeing, etc. It was honestly pretty EW, and there was no escaping it, because I was the ew. And from personal experience it is not possible to escape from yourself. I have tried, and it doesn’t work, so don’t waste your time trying.

Today is just as hot, and I don’t know about you, but the effect heat has on me is equivalent to taking five melatonin pills. The energy has been completely sucked out of me, and all I can do is lay here and drink Coca Cola and complain sweat quiet tears. Coca Cola hasn’t paid me to say that, but money talks, Coca Cola, money talks. I’m in a vulnerable state and I can be bought.

Oy.

Yesterday, I went to my youngest sister’s birthday. She turned six. My other sister and I gave her a Stacie Doll (for those ignorant to the world of Barbie, Stacie is Barbie’s tween-sister. AND SHAME ON YOU!) who loves to go camping. Well, I can only assume she loves it, because dolls usually feel things very strongly. At least according to the box they come in. She came with a tent, a plaid to keep her warm, a camping chair, a campfire and a stick with a marshmallow ready for some roasting. I know it might be bad taste to compliment your own gift (either way, I often do), but goddamn… I’m so glad we didn’t go for the tandem-bicycle Barbie. I would loved that when I was six… and fourteen.

I loved playing with dolls, and playing in general. I recently talked to a girl who just turned seventeen about how much I miss being younger and being able to play. She said that she hated being little, because there were so many things she didn’t understand, and so many things that didn’t make sense. I personally would give anything to go back to where nothing made sense, because I guess I believe that that is one of the perks about being little. One of the privileges. You will spend the rest of your life worrying about all the bullshit in life, so what’s the hurry? Playing with dolls is acting out fantasizes or scenarios without any consequences. It is part of getting to know yourself and discovering your own boundaries. It is a part of processing what is going on in your own life. I remember exactly how it felt, which is why I can identify so strongly with my little sister’s age. I can’t wait to play with my own future children, and encourage them playing on their own.

Okay. I think I am going to surrender to the heat and take a nap.

Today I spent the entire day with my grandparents, just like I used to when I was little.

Some of the best memories from my childhood are the many weekends I have spent with them, riding our bikes and going to the movies. The weekends were always steadily planned. Friday evening, my grandmother would put me in their bathtub, and I would spend an hour playing with My Little Pony dolls and various other plastic toys by myself. Buckets, cups, little boats. Then, she would make me a cup of tea, and I would borrow her bathrobe and watch a movie with her on the couch, my young fingers all wrinkly from having been soaking for the past hour. On Saturdays, we would go out on adventures together, maybe to the mall or grocery shopping. The latter doesn’t sound very adventurous, I know, but everything mundane became thrilling and exciting with them, because it was a completely different experience than what I was used to from home. At home, I was one out of several. With them, I was their little pearl, their first grandchild. That is why Sundays were particularly crushing (not that I have ever really been a fan), because why would you ever want that to end?

To this day, Fridays are still my favorite, even if I am twenty-two years old and no longer stay with them on the weekends.

Another thing that reminds me of happiness and all things good is going to Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli Gardens is the second-oldest amusement park in Denmark, and I think my grandfather must have taken me there at least a hundred times growing up. It has always been his thing to bring us there, and I have countless pictures of us together on the ferris wheel, him looking rather green in the face from being up so high. That will always be HIS place, our place.

It has been years since I have been there with them, where it has just been casual and to eat an ice cream, but today I suggested we go, because today felt special. I don’t know why, but today has felt different and special and magical, and like a day I am going to remember for a long time. To them, I am still five years old and in need of love and pampering and attention, and some days I genuinely am.  Some days I just need to sit with them on the ferris wheel and feel like I am still their pearl.

I should be in school, but my back hurts for the third day in a row and – also – I missed my alarm clock and woke up at 10.59am.

I have had an epiphany, and I am just bursting to tell someone, and unfortunately for you my boyfriend is in the other room wearing sound-cancelling headphones.

I have been blogging on and off since I was fourteen years old. When I was younger, there was less self-censor, less over-thinking it, less “Can I share this corny song-lyric from the early 2000s with the world and call that an entry”. I wrote because I could, because I loved it, because I felt like my little writing-heart was just bursting with thoughts and feelings and messages that were worthy of being heard. Then I got older and more self-conscious and muchos afraid of hurting everybody’s feelings. I got infected by the disease.

I recently found an old diary of mine with torn pages and bent corners and drawings related to my entries. A couple of months ago I had coffee with a good friend of mine at a café where we discussed writing and diaries. My friend is an amazing writer. She is the type of writer who is always scribbling on a piece of paper, who feels that she HAS to write. It’s in her veins, and life is not worth living without it. She looks like an artist, not caring if that shirt was also worn yesterday, her hair always changing color, and she uses small pens and small notepads and probably sits in her windowsill at home when she writes with a cup of coffee and soft music playing in the background. Anyway, we talked about diaries and she told me she had been writing diaries for as long as she could remember. I told her in return that I was a horrible diarist, and that every entry I had ever written in a diary had started out with an apology directed at the diary for not writing in so long. That was how I remembered it and myself, as the eternal goody two-shoes who had always been held back by self-censorship and feelings of guilt.

Then I found my diary. Friends, let’s just say that self-censorship was not a disease this child suffered from. I can’t tell you how happy I was to discover that a) I was a little witch, and b) I wrote on a regular basis from the age of ten to the age of fourteen, documenting everything from my eating disorder to my one and only TV-appearance, of course dissing everybody who had anything to do with me on a regular basis. THANK GOD.

Why am I happy to discover that I was a bitch? It shows that I was and am capable of writing without being fucking terrified of offending. MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN LITTLE SOFIE’S SELF-PERCEPTION.

Now I am going to jump to something that seemingly has nothing to do with self-perception, so bare with me. You will get a cookie.

I am not a brilliant writer. I am not a gifted talent and English is not even my first language. I will try to be eloquent, because I have been told that I can be, but sometimes it will be quick and without strain and, ultimately, I am writing for me. I am writing because I know I have things to say where I cannot be the only person to feel this way, even if it feels like that sometimes. I believe that we are constantly growing and I want to be able to look back on this and both say, “Thank God I am not like that anymore” and “Thank God I was like that once”.

Just like I did with my diary.

So welcome to my diary.