When I think back on my life I think of it in different periods, very different and clearly separated from each other. I see my life so far as a four act show, each act set in different locations.
Act 1 takes place between 1983-1988. During these early days of my life I live in three different towns but I only vaguely remember the last one.
Act 2 takes place between 1988-1999 in a village in the northern Sweden. This time of my life is what I think back on as my childhood. Of course my childhood actually started as soon as I was born but I still see these years as my childhood years, mostly because I don’t have a lot of memories from before 1988. Perhaps a better description would be my school years – high school excluded – since I started kindergarten in 1989 and left junior high in 1999.
Act 3 takes place between 1999-2004 in Västerås which is a big city near Stockholm in the southern part of Sweden. This period of time is what I consider to be my teenage years. I was already sixteen in 1999 so some of my teenage years did take place earlier than this but it wasn’t until 1999 that I actually started living the life a teenager in many ways. During this time there were a lot of firsts and I did all those things teenagers do while they’re growing up. This is also where I went to and graduated from high school and became a legal adult in 2001.
Act 4 started in 2004 and is still going on, in the small town of Hultsfred, even further south. I see this as the time of my adult life. I might have been a legal adult in 2001 but I wasn’t living the life of a grown up until I got here. Here is where I moved out of my parents house to my own apartment, got my first job and then started my higher education. This is where I grew up for real, not just on paper.
What will act five bring? I have no idea. All I know is that it won’t start until I leave Hultsfred since I clearly build the different acts of my life around moving and where I live. That’s because moving over big distances like I have means that I’ve left everything I knew behind each time I’ve relocated. It’s been brand new beginnings and starting all over both when I moved to Västerås and then from there to Hultsfred.
Do you look upon your life in this way, in different acts?
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I don’t look at my life in acts like you. I don’t know how I look at my life to be honest. I think I kind of define it by my relationships. I don’t know if that is bad or not. There would be the pre-boyfriend era which would be 1985-1999. The Andrew Era from 1999-2000. The Nicholas Era from 2001-2002. And the Winston Era from 2003-Present. I feel like there are going to be more eras to come but I don’t know if they will be with Winston or without him. Eg. the Pre-Wedding era, Post-wedding era lol.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m replying to this entry instead of your most recent one, but I’m afraid I don’t know enough about the Swedish government to intelligently comment on any of that. =/
Anyway…
I can definitely see what you mean about defining your life thus far as “acts” – I think that’s a better phrase for it too, than what I use (“eras”). I think of my own life much the same way: “the good old days” (’85-’89) of my early childhood, the early primary years (’90-’94), the “starting to realize the world is crap” era (lol – ’95-’987), the dark teen years (’98-’03), the emotional vagabond era (’04-’08) and whatever I decide to call 2009 onwards.
I liked that you referred to becoming an adult “legally” and actually feeling/acting like an adult as separate things – I think there’s a far greater discrepancy between the two than a lot of people realize. I regard you as being very sensible and insightful about these things, really. *awards the Aly seal of approval*