I just signed the papers required for my mother living in another part of Finland to sell the house (for further background information concerning the mayhem around the building, see the entry 'The plot thickens...' in 15th of September).
The couple we're selling it (and the lands and the forest etc.) came at my place today and brought the papers me and my sister both have to sign, giving our mother the right to decide for us; in other words, her signature alone makes the bargain official and legal. I used to go to school with V; he's a year older than me. This makes me wonder one thing: is he doing things faster than he should or am I being left behind? I think it's the latter mainly, but quite frankly I think V's girlfriend M being pregnant may have an effect on the matter.
Once I first heard they would want to buy the house I suspected either or both of their parents might have their fingers on it. Both V and M coming from a conventional area of southern Ostrobothnia it would make perfect sense that when a 22-year-old knocks up his 20-year-old girlfriend the result is that their parents want them to do what is expected from them: to buy a house and get married. As far as I know especially V's parents who are trying to push them to the calm harbour of marriage (surprisingly enough; usually it's the girl's parents trying to make their daughter "a respectable woman").
M is a friend of my sister's, so when she told me her friend wasn't too eager to get the house I called my mother the same day saying that if M is being pushed to do what their parents want them to do I won't sign a single paper and take her misfortune my burden. But later my sister told me that she's already planning all the things she wants to do to the house, which room will be the baby's room and how she'd like to decorate the rooms... she does want it herself, too. So now V and M are happy owners of their own house. Good for them; maybe life will be good to them as well as to their unborn child.
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The house... a lot of things happened in the place I grew up in.
I learned to walk.
I learned to talk.
I found out the realities of life.
I wandered in the nearby forests dreaming of being the long-lost princess of the queen of the woods.
I kept running away screaming from butterflies every summer.
I shared secrets with my friend.
I escaped from the cruel world in books.
I lost my virginity to myself.
I consider the possibility of being a lesbian for the first time.
I lived under costant fright and insecurity due to my father and his alcoholism.
I feared for my own safety, and that of my siblings, and that of my mother, the only one obliged to look after me.
I dreamed of a better life and cried for hours.
I threw up on purpose for the first time.
I cut myself for the first time.
I left it at the age of seventeen, my returns becoming more and more rare.
I visited the house for what is very likely the final time last Saturday.
- - -
By the way, I've met M once before. I have to say that for the first time in my life I saw for myself what is meant when people always say that a pregnant woman is glowing. M looked absolutely gorgeous and happy, touching her belly every now and then. A pregnant woman is beautiful.
