Showing all posts in Brain Dump

A post shared by Fanny Sura (@suradance) on Aug 14, 2017 at 5:38am PDT

“A good day starts with a positive attitude and a great cup of coffee”

Good Morning my friends! How are you today? I woke up happy, took a shower and got dressed. But when I saw the messy kitchen with all the dirty dishes, I got cranky. What should we do when we get in a bad mood for something so small as dishes in the kitchen? Well, I quickly took care of it, took Thor for a nice walk in the sun and then made myself coffee. The day is saved. 

You can’t escape the daily things like cleaning, doing laundry, clean the dishes in the sink, taking the garbage out or fold your clothes, or at least you can’t ignore it for too long. It’s part of life and life happens every minute of your day. But instead of putting so much negative thought into that you have to take care of all these boring things: just do it, just take care of it and soon you’ll be done and you can do all the other more fun stuff. 

Something I need to work on is just my negative mind. I have to practice to see the positive in things. Instead of thinking “damn, I have to take care of all the dishes, it’s so boring, it takes too much time..” etc. I try to instead think “if I do it now, then I have more time for other stuff later”. Cleaning is something I can enjoy, but dishes…not so much. But I make it into games of trying to compete with myself or I sing songs about what I’m doing to make it more fun. When I fold the clean laundry I usually listen to podcasts. If I don’t feel like taking the dog for a walk, I simple see it as an opportunity for a walking meditation. Today, I saw coffee as my reward:)

The happiest time of my life was the fall of 2011. It took me time to realize what it was that made me so happy then. I had just gone through very very tough months. It was a really difficult time for me. I separated with my boyfriend of 10 years, “broke up” with my best friends without knowing why and I came back to Sweden where I didn’t feel like I belonged. But at the same time I felt happy during these months. I felt guilty for feeling happy while I was depressed and sad. It was so strange but I kept going without thinking about it. Eventually, a year later, I started to think about what it was.

I’ve told you before that yoga, finding comfort from someone new (who’s now my husband) and letting go of these people in my life was the reason for this happiness. And yes, I still believe that. But there is one more important thing. I stopped carrying about stuff, especially clothes. I felt free when I let go of “wanting new stuff” all the time. For years I had thought that I had to like clothes, care about my looks when leaving my apartment, that expensive things would make me special. I lived with a person that only spent time with people who talked about earning more money so that they could buy an expensive car, bigger apartments, designer clothes and go on vacation to cool places. I had a hard time keeping up since I was a student with no time for extra jobs on the side. My friends didn’t necessarily spend much money since they were also students, but we talked a lot about fashion and similar things. It was all fun then. I was one of them. I too wanted to figure out a way to earn money so that I could buy cool stuff and I enjoyed dressing up and look nice together with my friends. 

And then I met someone who’s pants were too big, his work shirt was not the slimmer fit and he didn’t care if he did something differently than you were “supposed” too. I liked spending time with this new friend and I decided to let go of my thoughts about his baggy jeans (in Sweden, loose pants is a big no no on guys for some reason). I had fun with this guy, he made me laugh and he helped me crossing things off my NYC list before I went back to Sweden. It was such a relief to not constantly think about my looks and my clothes (and his clothes, hahah). He made me realize that other things are more important. 

This was the same feeling I had when I lived in Lisbon. I brought heels there but I could never wear them because their streets are not good for that. At first I was sad, and then I forgot that I had them. It was very warm during the days and sweaty in the dance studios, so thinking about my looks all the time would have driven me crazy. One night there, after I had washed my makeup off and wished to go to bed early, we suddenly had a full apartment of people. I felt a bit weird not having makeup on, but it was friends so I didn’t really care (just a little). Somehow my friends convinced me to join them to go out for a few hours. It had been probably 10 years since I had walked outside with no makeup. It was the only thing I thought about when we walked down to the party street (there is one street where everybody is hanging outside). I noticed that noone cared if I had mascara on or not and they didn’t care about that I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and not a party dress, so why should I care? 

Both in Lisbon and my first years in NYC, my things could fit in a suitcase. Sure, I had things back home in Sweden, but now every time I have visited my parents I get rid of stuff. And it feels awesome every time. Why save things I don’t need or care about?

We are constantly fed with the thought that we should want more things in our lives. Buy this, buy that. You should look like this and eat this but not that. You should earn money, buy a big house and own a designer handbag. The latest iphone is soon out of style so you should order the new one and your new pc can’t make cool stuff anymore so go buy yourself a new laptop. 

I have been thinking about this a lot since we signed the contract for this apartment. I loved our old apartment. It was a perfect home for me, my husband and our puppy. For months before we moved, I had been kinda annoyed though. We kept getting new stuff and we had run out of places to put it all. People have been joking (but still meant it) about that we should get a bigger place so we can have more stuff. Our apartment was pretty big for being New York and we payed a lot for it, so I have felt that it’s a luxury to have “so much space”. This new apartment is almost twice the size for the same cost. We were both excited to move and we love living here now. But a bigger place means more furniture and more things. I really didn’t want much more, but we needed to get a sleeper sofa for when guest are staying over, patio furniture, a new desk for my husband, organization boxes and some more kitchen things. See,…more. And this is not all the things we have bought. We have bought a lot of other things to make this big space feel like home and not an empty storage unit. And then also, every time I go on social media, read blogs or read a magazine I see fashion trends and wonder if I should go shopping to fill up our walk-in-closet, even though I have enough clothes and most of it I don’t even use. And makeup, it’s something I definitely not wear every day anymore. 

Do we really need all this? Does it make our lives better? 

Our living room downstairs

My phone is completely full. My laptop is full. My hard drives are full. Why? Well, I’m afraid to loose things, so I update everywhere but then don’t delete anywhere else. I have lost important stuff so many times that I now have turned into a digital hoarder. It’s driving me nuts of course. I don’t need all the things I save but it has become a bad habit. All of our vacation pictures are taking up all my space on every device. I want to print them out and put in an album, but then my fear of fire kicks in.

The other day, I was putting stuff from my phone on my laptop, things that wasn’t important enough to save on multiple places and my phone was so full I couldn’t save a single thing more. All of a sudden, everything I had put on my laptop got deleted. No idea how and it wasn’t in the recycle bin. There was no way for me to get it back, I tried everything and googled all sort of stuff to help me. I had deleted everything from my phone already too, so my things was just gone. Gone!
The things that got lost wasn’t important at all (I think), but it still sucked and my fear of loosing other things like honeymoon photos or whatever was bigger than normal. I screamed right out and yelled at my phone and the laptop. I was furious!
When I was right in the middle of trying everything possible, I just suddenly stopped. I made a decision to let go. My docs and pics were not going to come back. Maybe there was a way, but I didn’t wanna know anymore. I unplugged my phone and shut down the computer. 

Why spend time on unnecessary shit? IF it in fact had been my honeymoon photos or greencard documents or anything more real to care about, then letting go would be harder, but all of those things I have been smart enough to save on my husbands pc. I’ve lost resumes, personal recommendations and documents written in college more than once before and I have let go of that. Some shit that I don’t even know what it was got lost. Why put energy on that?

I’m tired of full devices, so I will sort everything out on every single place and I will put really important documents on dvds and put in a fireproof safe that we are going to buy. And if I somehow loose vacation pictures, well, then I have some saved on my blog (this is why an online diary is fantastic hehe). In the end, none of this matters. Material things doesn’t matter, pictures on a hard drive doesn’t matter and if it gets lost, then ok. We have to be able to let go. 

Last year in April, I went to Sweden to surprise my mother who was coming home from a vacation where she had celebrated her 50th birthday. I was in Sweden for a week. On April 5th, we went to my grandmothers house. She had been at the hospital for a while and could finally come home that day. Grandma didn’t know that I was coming to Sweden, nobody except my dad knew. She was full of medication and was talking about all sort of weird stuff. Hilarious stories about her champagne parties when she was young. I just sat there next to her and held her hand, listened and laughed. Every time I came to see her the last few years, she was always happy, smiled and behaved like the grandma I know. I’ve never really seen the other side of her that my family and relatives talked about. I’ve seen her in pain, but not in the way I’ve been told she could show it. She wrote letters to me and told me about the pains in her body and how lonely she felt, but she never wanted to show it to me in person. So, I only remember her for the good times. I felt that this would be my last time I would see her. On the plane back to America I could not stop thinking about her. This feeling was so strong and I hated it, but at the same time this allowed me to work on my feelings of her being gone one day before it was reality and it made the actual passing in July easier for me.

It’s hard to be so far away from family and relatives. I haven’t seen most of my cousins in many years, I’ve never even met some of their children or partners. I miss my other grandmother a lot and I would love to spend more time with my aunts and their families. Emails, facebook or actual letters helps of course but it’s not bringing me closer to them. I don’t know when my next visit to Sweden will be, it may not even be this year. I feel bad for living so far away and that I don’t visit them more often. But, they are not visiting me either, so…
Now I know how it is to loose someone and how much I wish that I would have seen her more before she died. I constantly think about that I’m not spending enough time with my family and relatives, but there’s not much I can do about it. I live here. They live there. Flights are not free and travel takes time. I’ll see them when I see them.

Picture from August 2013, right before my wedding

When I came to New York City six years ago, I was convinced by others that I love this city. After a few months of living here I realized that it wasn’t my own thoughts, I actually didn’t really get that feeling people were talking about at all. But, I loved that I was somewhere else than back home, just like when I lived in Lisbon. I didn’t love Lisbon for the amazing city it was, I loved it because I found wonderful friends, got an incredible experience and I could dance all day long.
After a summer in Sweden I decided to go back to NYC. My plans, as you know, was to move to Austria, but I ended up in NYC again. I was excited about a lot of things, but it could probably have been any place on earth and I would have had the same feelings. Soon I started dating my husband and then I was trapped by love and I ended up staying here. 

I decided to take a break from dance and everything else and just focus on myself (and cuddle Thor, haha). I thought it would take me 2-3 months and then I would be bored out of my mind and I would be just as busy again. Sure, I was extremely bored, but I had also built up a frustration against my passion and love for dance and art, so my two months break has now turned into two years. 
It didn’t help that I wasn’t in love with my city. NYC has so much to offer and endless of possibilities and that was my excitement when I came back after that first summer. But the city didn’t motivate me anymore. New York is expensive, dirty, smelly, full of confused tourists, roaches, rats and creepy people. The art and dance is pretty crappy too, cause everybody thinks they can be artists and the ones who speak the loudest book the job even if they suck (yes, that’s one of my frustrations – I value good education, technique and knowledge, not the idea that you can fake it to make it). There is no quality on stage or in the studios and I get so bored just by thinking about it. 

So moving to a new place is exciting and I feel like I can start over.

But I’m terrified too. In one way, I DO love this city. Living on Manhattan where you are surrounded by water, you can walk everywhere, find everything you need (and don’t need) and talk to friendly strangers on the street. What beats that? In NYC you have the worlds best food, tons of events, the best concerts, performances, art, fantastic architecture and a beautiful skyline.
When we found out that we might have to move, I freaked out. I realized in that moment that NYC is in fact my city, my home and where I could find inspiration and motivation (if I just opened my mind a bit). Why didn’t I see this two years ago? Why did I let this city bring me down and not up?

Moving and starting over can be scary to people. For me it has always been exciting. I love to leave everything and everyone behind and start over, I’ve done it several times. We’re not moving very far, it will still be under an hour train ride to Grand Central and I could still find work and take classes on Manhattan, so I’m not leaving the city just yet. But maybe that’s what scares me. What if I end up not taking that train and only live the CT life? And then get even more bored. This is my fear.

Change is always good. And fear is good…as long as you punch it in the face and jump on that train. 

So, I’m excited about moving…and I’m terrified.