This was not part of the dre­ams I had as a yo­ung girl – the home of a sing­le per­son. But this home is my own home, and it is al­wa­ys a joy to come back here. Yet I dre­a­med of so­met­hing dif­fe­rent. Were they fu­ti­le dre­ams be­cau­se they did not come true? I do not think so. When you dream about so­met­hing, you ne­ver know whet­her or not yo­ur dream will come true. If we were ab­le to know all things be­fo­re­hand, life would seem qui­te emp­ty.

Dre­ams are like tra­vels in our own mind. They do not dis­turb or of­fend any­bo­dy un­less they take over the eve­ry­day re­a­li­ty and in­ca­pa­ci­ta­te us. I still dream, but my dre­ams have chan­ged over time. Tra­ve­ling in yo­ur dre­ams does not re­qui­re a pas­s­port, a suit­ca­se, mo­ney, time off from work, or even a com­pa­ni­on, but it can add co­lor to yo­ur ot­her­wi­se une­vent­ful dai­ly life.

So­me­ti­mes I tra­vel in real life, too, ma­king lon­ger or shor­ter trips. I have good me­mo­ries of spen­ding a night in the home of dear friends. I sat down for bre­ak­fast in the mid­d­le of the child­ren on a long bench. The baby sat in a high chair at one end of the tab­le, wa­ving his spoon and sin­ging cheer­ful­ly.

– It seems so nice to have my bre­ak­fast in com­pa­ny and not by my­self, like usu­al­ly, I said.

– Oh, isn’t it ter­rib­ly dull? the lit­t­le girl loo­ked at me with as­to­nish­ment in her ey­es.

– Don’t you have any­bo­dy? one of the lit­t­le ones as­ked.

I told them how I live.

– You just have bre­ak­fast by yo­ur­self? the first lit­t­le girl wan­ted to make sure she had got it right.

I told them that I do all the nor­mal dai­ly cho­res that are done in their home. I al­so told them so­met­hing el­se. The mot­her of the fa­mi­ly ad­ded that I have a pos­si­bi­li­ty to do all kinds of things wit­hout as­king any­bo­dy for per­mis­si­on and wit­hout any­bo­dy dis­tur­bing me.

– I could come to yo­ur home and stay the night, my god­son pro­mi­sed.

I of­ten mar­vel at the mot­hers who wor­ry about so many things in their fa­mi­lies, as I may al­so feel pain­ful­ly wor­ried about some of the pe­op­le who are close to me. I know, ho­we­ver, that they have the strength and joy of mot­her­hood and a view of the fu­tu­re. I think I would not cope with the many chal­len­ges of fa­mi­ly life. The He­a­ven­ly Fat­her has gi­ven me a life that is sui­tab­le to me. I just hope that I would ne­ver be­co­me so self-cen­te­red that I would not be touc­hed by the joys, needs, and wor­ries of ot­her pe­op­le. They are part of rich hu­man life.

Sing­le pe­op­le have a lot of free­dom to come and go, to ac­qui­re things, and to plan their sche­du­les. There are na­tu­ral­ly al­so li­mi­ta­ti­ons. I can­not get or do eve­ryt­hing, but frank­ly, I do not even want to. We are nee­ded by our friends and ot­her dear ones, by so­cie­ty, and by ot­her be­lie­vers. I so­me­ti­mes feel there are too many strings pul­ling me in­to dif­fe­rent di­rec­ti­ons. At those ti­mes it would seem good not ha­ving to come in­to an emp­ty home. It would be good to have so­me­o­ne to lis­ten and share my thoughts and fee­lings. But I have al­so seen that life com­pa­ni­ons are not al­wa­ys ab­le to share and un­ders­tand each ot­her’s most sen­si­ti­ve thoughts and fee­lings.

It is my ex­pe­rien­ce that when I am alo­ne with my thoughts, comp­le­te­ly new pros­pects of life may open up if my fee­ling of being alo­ne is not pre­do­mi­na­ted by an­xie­ty. I of­ten have that ex­pe­rien­ce when wal­king along a fo­rest path or stop­ping by a lake. I may al­so ex­pe­rien­ce such free­dom while wor­king on a mo­no­to­nous dai­ly chore, where my hands work au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly and le­a­ve my mind free to roam. A dull mo­ment may be­co­me re­war­ding and bring joy to life.

The lit­t­le girl who won­de­red about the dul­l­ness of my life has grown to be a yo­ung stu­dent, who of­ten longs for pe­a­ce among her busy fa­mi­ly life.

I re­cent­ly read a book about the va­lue of dul­l­ness and mo­no­to­ny. The aut­hor dis­cus­sed the fear of mo­dern pe­op­le to face them­sel­ves at mo­ments when there is not­hing going on. Yet pre­ci­se­ly those mo­ments give space for thoughts and cre­a­ti­vi­ty. Dull mo­ments are ac­tu­al­ly nee­ded by pe­op­le of all ages.

Text: Ai­li Pa­sa­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal Fin­nish blog post here.