So.....

I wanted to add a quick side note to my acceptance blog.

I have been very blessed in my life. While we all go through difficulties it does not mean that we are not grateful or happy. Praying, (how often do we look to God for help and answers) writing (why do so many keep a journal?), talking (friends!!!) and thinking about both the good and the bad, I believe to be both a natural and necessary process. I don´t think anyone can claim that they had all the answers from the get go, or that they did not slam into a few bumps in the road on the way to finding them. The feelings that I wrote about not being blond enough and so on were my opinions entirely at some point in time. Although I really am too short for modeling in theory. I write this with a smile on my face because I was in fact working for a modeling agency and questioned why. For me it only proves that most often we tend to stand in our own way. Human nature is often contradictory. How often has it happened that others might tell us we look great but unless we feel it we have a hard time accepting it? Yet we would not want to hear them say anything negative either.

Secondly I  am very proud of where I am from yet for a long time I thought we had to identify with one particular place. But I felt at home everywhere and I  identified with more then just one place.
Until this day I can never give a simple answer of where I am from.
I always say "I was born in Sweden, my dads Italian and my mothers Hungarian". Often people get confused by my answer however if I ever shared in that confusion myself I don´t anymore. My blog is about that journey, those doubts, questions and all the other factors that helped me realize that I belong everywhere which to me is both mind boggling and amazing.

Acceptance

It can be both a fulfilling and a painful task trying to figure out your place in the world. Growing up we are filled with illusions as well as justified rules of right versus wrong. What is true beauty? How do we achieve it? It´s hard enough trying to figure out what we are put into this world to do, without the added complications of which place to call home, all the question marks, smart remarks and bullying from the outside world. We are tough enough on our selves. Almost from the first day that we learn how to think for ourselves we struggle with what we want out of life, versus what others want for us. What we think of our selves versus how others depict us. So it’s always made me feel even more weighed down by the fact that I was constantly looking for a place where I truly fitted in, where it all came together and made sense.

I craved a place where I could fully and I truly belong, and be accepted just as I was, for all that I was. Without handing me a handful of expectations, or as often the case, pointing out why I just was not quit up to par. I did not need any help since I was my own hardest critic feeling that I always seemed to fall short. My blond was not blond enough, or dark enough, I was not thin enough for ballet, not tall enough for modeling, not pretty enough to be a classic beauty yet not edgy enough to be sexy, and I also lacked a certain sweetness that would have made me cute. I had great grades, but still I did not feel that they were good enough. I had amazing friends, yet I was no cheerleader, and as it turned out I was rarely Swedish, Hungarian, Italian or even enough of anything in-between to be fully claimed by any one nationality. So my journey was as much one I made for gathering experience, knowledge and an education, as it was for my own inner growth where I could finally settle down and call home, without constantly question my belonging. I desperately tried to find my place, that nobody could question let alone me. It was hard, because in each place there was something I really loved, that felt connected to. At the same time something always seemed to be lacking. Years would pass before I would accept, and be accepted for what I was. I was good enough for each place, each place spoke to me because each place became my home. Every part of the world had something I wanted to adjust to or do differently, just as you would want to fix things in your own home. I was not simple to understand or figure out, because to do so one had to know the world. I did not understand this until finally in the end I realized perhaps the reason why it is so painful for me to find my place, is because I will never be happy calling just one place my home. Being reformed, fitted into one tight category never did fit me, although that was what I thought I truly desired for such a long time. Every place holds a part of me, each place breaks my heart whenever I have to part from it, even for the shortest period of time. Before I could demand other people to understand me I had to figure myself out first. Once I did I realized I was not just ok with myself, I felt great. It was from that point on I could move on, I had come full circle, I accepted my self without any prestenses or excuses.

A Citizen of the world

So I have been meaning to start writing for a while. Yet it is first now with a little baby at home, that I finally find my self having the time. This is my story, about my experiences told from point of view. When I started to write A Citizen of the World I had just moved to Mexico, and I was loving it. However the attitude of some of the people did shock me, not the majority by any means but it was still enough to catch me of guard. So as my blogs starts it takes us back four years in time when I had only lived here for five months. In a way I am grateful that it was not always easy since it made me sit down and actually start writing "A Citizen of the World".

Growing up in Sweden I was always known as the “foreign” girl, my name being Italian like my father, and my mother being Hungarian.

Whenever visiting friends and family in Hungary, my sister and I were known as the Swedish girls. In Italy they took us at face value, we were the girls that were born in Sweden but had a Hungarian mother and Italian father.

We spoke all three languages fluently, yet we were always put into categories, we were different from the rest.

During my studies in America once again, I was the girl nobody could quite place, or agree on where to place. My accent, look, style….what was I? My accent sounded different, perhaps I was British, or Irish or even Australian. I looked European, but from which part?

When they heard my name….off course I was Italian, and if I had my natural brown hair, it all made sense. I mean I could not possible be Swedish with brown hair and green eyes, not to mention my name. But then if I had blond hair then “off course I was Swedish, after all I had blond hair.”

Then finally in Mexico, people were clueless as to where I was from. My Spanish improved fast, I did not sound American…just foreign. With America being so close and my English so good…that’s it I was American.

The favorite pastime of some girls that I met was to falsely copy my accent and make it into an exaggerated American drawl, whenever I spoke Spanish, doing their utmost in attempting to make me feel silly and stupid for even trying. I thought at first that it most be a joke since I was pretty sure not to be back in high-school.

After years of explaining, trying to place myself and struggling to be accepted and to fit in, I have had it!

You can’t place me….because I was born to be a citizen of the world!