All I want is to flee to Hogwarts.

Black velvet leggings and black blazer, Monki. White lace socks, Lindex. Black leather boots, Nilson. Black shirt/dress, Pudel. Belt, Asos.com. Purple/burgundy beret, Åhléns. Brown leather satchel, Vero Moda. My new aaaawesome glasses, "Lucia", Proopticals.com.

(Photos by me.)

The questions is; just how excited can wearing a pair of round eyeglasses make a person? The answer is, apparently, really freakin' excited. I've wanted a pair just like these forever, but when I got new glasses for Christmas last year, I chickened out a chose frames that I thought were a little more average. Then I found these adorable ones at proopticals.com for 20 dollars (!), and, well, now I just have to wait until I can afford putting real lenses in them. (So far, they're nothing but an accessory, since they don't make me any less blind.)

With the exception of the cute round glasses, I'm not especially excited at the moment. Quite the opposite, really. I keep finding myself at crossroads, forced to make decisions I don't feel fit to make, and all I know is that I have to keep moving. Standing still at the same spot is not an option. But how do you make yourself move forward, how do you decide which path to take, when all you want to do is lay in bed with your eyes closed and focus on the sound of your own breathing?

This is all but a new feeling for me. And if there's one thing my past experiences have taught me, it's that baby steps can be a perfectly fine pace. As long as I make the tiniest of decisions, one after the other, everything else eventually becomes a little more clear.

I took one of those baby steps today. I made an appointment with a new therapist, and I will start seeing her next week. I've come to the conclusion that though cognitive behavioral therapy has worked well for me in the past, it's not the right way to go at this point. It has helped me through a lot of emergency breakdowns, taught me ways to live a somewhat decent every day life - but this is not a crisis. I'm not falling to pieces the way I have before, it's less urgent than that. Less urgent, though not any less desperate. I've been depressed for as long as I can remember and I'm not getting better. I can feel a bit better for periods of time, now and then I can distract myself and let other people and situations distract me, but the facts are still facts: I'm sick, I'm unhappy, and I'm terrified that this is the way it's going to be for the rest of my life. That every time I see the light at the end of the tunnel, all that's waiting for me at the end is the entrance of another.

So, I found a psychologist who specializes on psychodynamic psychotherapy, and my goal is to go to the bottom of what's keeping me from experiencing happiness, joy, satisfaction, harmony and balance. Christ, I don't even need to be happy. I just want to wake up in the morning without either feeling like I'm going to die or, worse, wondering if there's any point staying alive. Not just tomorrow and next week but in a year, two, twenty. If that means I'm going back on anti-depressants, so be it. I'm just so tired of being in constant battle with myself. It's exhausting.

With all this talk of being tired - in combination with my new, terrific glasses - I think it's time for another column translation! I wrote this last summer, when I was feeling quite a bit like I am now. If you like my columns, feel free to read it, if not, I won't be offended. Just tell me my glasses are pretty! ;)


I'm so tired.

It's like... like all the air has left my lungs, the way it does a balloon that was forgotten in a dark corner after a five year old's birthday party. Not with a pop nor a bang, but with a slow, inevitable wheeze.

Like I've been awake for months.

That's almost the case. When I get this tired I can't even muster up enough energy to sleep. Last night I thought I'd succeeded - until I woke up at 3:37am from the kind of nightmare that makes going back to sleep impossible.

It's the kind of fatigue that overpowers it all. I lose track of time, feel it slipping through my fingers. This morning I took the communter train into Stockholm, finally on the subway I passed the station I was supposed to get off at - twice in a row. I got on the train, blinked, and several stops had already passed by.

That's how tired I am.

Nothing new about this. The same thing every time I pressure myself a little bit too hard, a little bit too long. Like when you flex a muscle with all your might until the lactic acid kicks in, the muscle starts shivering, shaking, cramping; and when you finally let it relax it feels like you will never, ever in your entire life be able to use it again.

This is what it feels like. Inside my whole body, my soul, all the way through.

I don't want to work, I don't want to eat, clean, get dressed or wash my hair. I do it, because I have to, but I don't want to.

All I want is to flee to Hogwarts.

Only there am I safe.

I have no idea how many times I've read Joanne Kathleen Rowling's books about the young wizard with the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. A lot. Enough times to make every sentence feel like home.

When my Ronnie is done making fun of me for reading "children's books", he always asks: but don't you already know exactly what's going to happen?

He can't seem to understand that this is the whole point.

Each time I open the books, I'm sucked straight into the adventures. I'm pulled into the story, drawn by force, losing myself in everything from complicated homework to the battle against evil. I laugh, cry, get nauseous from all the butterflies going nuts in my stomach as I get closer to the life-or-death fights. But whatever turns the story might take, I never have to fear. I know it will all be okay in the end. And right there, in the safety of that insight, I can finally rest.

But the most spectacular thing about the Harry Potter books has to be the amount of pages. No matter how impossible it seems to take on life in this desperatly non-magical world - when I have plowed through all seven books, suddenly enough time has passed that the worst is over. I find myself waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, washing my hair and sitting down at my desk to work. Not because I have to, but because I want to.

It never fails. I have my suspicions there might be magic involved.

Now I have to get back to my book. Harry is just about to battle a fire-breathing Hungarian Horntail.

I know exactly how it's going to end.