A selection of a letter to my old friend...

I had to answer a simple question, but how can one answer a simple question when its answer isn't really simple, it explaination tricky and complex with many twists and turns:

I realize that maybe I can explain to a few other friends or two with this selection:

"....After living in Chicago, away from family, alone, and sometimes not alone I learned ONE important thing, it doesn't matter where you are, its the people that count, not the place.

Friends never fade, even after years of non-contact, but you can be certain, that its the people that count, not the place they live in...we only become used to it. I figure it could be BAD to live in Sweden, but the worst thing was to know that you missed an opportunity stricktly based upon geography, rather than the heart. I think you understand this lesson life offers as well.

I figured, I could live in a familar place, I love, or hate, what ever, but without LOVE, no place would ever be home. I stand by that statement, even when it feels like love could fail me, that I would have to live on my own, or look for new opportunities just to give myself something to look forward to, but the fact remains: I could never have discovered Sweden, for all its wonders and all its ideals, and even its darker side, if it had not been for my love for Johan. I would never have had my beautiful son, and I would have never tested my adaptablity, or expanded my language base.

Yes, one can find out just who one is when one strips down the ideas of what being who you are actually entail. There was a credit card commercial here, "You are not your car, you are not your home, you are not your designer suit..." **** to me it was just "Preaching to the Choir".. I've always know that, but most people don't seem to understand, you are not your culture, your job, how much you make a year, what you choose to watch and read, you are not your nationality, and first and formost you are not your body; I say that because even when the body doesn't function the way it is, or the way it should, many people have often said of blindness or deafness or lameness, "I'd rather die than be...."

BUT WHY?

But without love... even in an able body, lots of money and lots of strength.. it sort of takes the air out of the ballon.

I must certainly be a freak.

Yes, how I got to Sweden, easy, I fell in love. WE fell in love....."

So goes it!

****Not only was that quote used for a comercial, but rather previously in the film "Fight Club"