My new life in Portugal <> the art of starting over

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." – Neil Gaiman 💭 www.CharlotteEriksson.com 💭

About rediscovering yourself in your 30s ♡ www.CharlotteEriksson.com If I could share one revelation with anyone out there navigating the transitions in life, it would be this:   Rediscover those passions or objects that made you feel free before the world told you what to do and who to be. The hobbies you picked up before you asked yourself if they were cool or would pay your rent. Dig them up from wherever you&#39;ve buried them, and engage with them totally anew - as the grounded, self-assured person you&#39;ve maybe become, or are becoming. No more pressure to make a career out of them, to get graded or judged. Now it’s just for you. Because life is short and long and time is all there is. It&#39;s there inside you, those passions. That essential part of you that never left, it just got mislaid along the way. All it takes is a little courage to find that voice again, to say &quot;Excuse me, this is me we&#39;re talking about here. My bliss, my loves, my ecstasies.&quot;

I have always talked about turning fear of the unknown into excitement for the endless possibilities. When you don’t know what’s going to happen, anything can happen. Everything is possible now. How exciting is that?! So instead of being scared of not knowing what&#39;s going to happen, you can learn to view uncertainty as something exciting. Honestly, I believe it’s one of the greatest mindsets to learn because fear of the unknown will hold you back like nothing else. It will keep you hostage in dark relationships, stuck in a job you hate, or stuck in a city you don’t love because you’re simply scared to make a change. There is no better feeling than being on your way to unknown lands, truly feeling deep in your core that you’re driving towards unlimited opportunities in life, and now it’s up to you. 💭 www.CharlotteEriksson.com 💭

Losing people is a part of life, I do not think we can avoid it. So it’s the way we move forward that counts. I’ve moved on from people without looking back; without wanting to spend any more time dwelling or thinking or reliving. But I also think you can move while also treasuring a place for them in your heart, forever. Moving on doesn’t always mean forgetting. Moving on can mean: building on, honoring, treasuring, and remembering. And maybe one day, when we’re old and grey, we’ll find ourselves back in our hometown on Christmas Eve at the same old pub. &quot;So, Dave, tell me about the last 30 years of your life&quot;. And he’ll go… &quot;it started when I moved to Nashville&quot;. And I will smile and listen and laugh and cry and then I’ll tell him about Porto, where it started for me, and where I went after that. We’ll have another whisky and drink to life, for its wonderful and cruel ways of turning friends into strangers and, on lucky days, strangers into friends and friends into family.  Find my books, music and links at www.CharlotteEriksson.com

I&#39;m back ♡ I missed talking to you! I sold all my belongings and moved to Portugal. To start over, once more. Let&#39;s chat about it. Life is weird and strange and uncertain and absolutely wonderful. DM me your thoughts and stories on IG: @justaglasschild Find all my books and music and links at www.CharlotteEriksson.com “What is that feeling when you&#39;re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it&#39;s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it&#39;s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”― Jack Kerouac

A writing from my book Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself ♡ They say you can trace a person’s history, hidden emotions and unhealed scars in their appearance. How you act, how you walk, how you laugh. Do you have a broken heart? It shows. Are you in love? It shows. They say bad skin reveals stress or anxiety. Do you blink a lot or do you keep a steady gaze during a conversation? Do you talk clearly with strong support from your stomach, or do you speak quietly and fast, running over your words? Have you ever tried not to eat, just to keep some sort of focus? Sad people either sleep a lot or not at all. I often wonder what people see when they look at me. What energy do I send out? Do I look happy? Do I look sad? Do I look friendly? Do I look like someone you&#39;d want to hang out with? Do I look like someone you could like? Do I look insecure, or like I&#39;m strong and sure, a role model to follow? Do I look like someone who threw my fist into a mirror because I simply saw myself in there and couldn&#39;t stand the thought of it? People say there is sadness in my eyes but the sadness sits in my chest so I wonder what it is they see in my eyes.

An excerpt from my book Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself. Pick up a signed copy of my book in my store here, or find it on Amazon ♡ They tell me I have an interesting life. Going places, seeing people, and I shrug my shoulders as I pour another drink, sitting lonely on my floor in my empty room, another Sunday, in another city, like I’ve done so many times for so many years and they tell me I’m lucky and should be grateful. And yes, I am grateful. I was grateful walking lonely through a freezing Berlin on Christmas Eve last year and I was grateful as I lied about my name and job and age to everyone I met and meet and if you seek the papers where I’ve been the last years you will find nothing. Or at best, or worst, a spread-out girl leaving small traces here and there, covering it up with different states of mind or jobs or name and there was a time they said I would go places. I would go places, they said, once, way back when. And this is what I think of as I’m sitting lonely on the train home from another night of beautiful people, welcoming me into their homes with open arms. I played some songs and they hugged me like I’ve never been hugged before, by anyone who knows me, and they told me “thank you” and “I love you” and hugged me again, like I’ve never been hugged by anyone who knows me, and they were grateful. For me. And so was I. For them. Human interaction: the most complicated form of happiness I will never figure out.

Come find me www.CharlotteEriksson.com 💭

This is a writing from my book Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself 🌱 &quot;Youthful days are treasures and it has nothing to do with age. Still young, I guess, but I remember younger days. Wide-eyed on every bus to nowhere, everywhere, finding melodies and stories, people to love and lose and I opened up in different ways. Shared made-up pasts, shaped and designed to tell and sweep away like the poet that I am they tell me. Why tell them about me, when I can tell them about a different me?   ... but life grows you ignorant.    I’m walking on an empty country road  somewhere in Sweden  and I have no cares in the world.  I’ve fought and I’ve tried. I’ve seen things, I think to myself but I’m not happy with what I did or made of myself and I have no cares in the world. I spit over my shoulder, get drunk on empty roads  in the middle of the day, lying on fields in the cold, cursing how little I grew; how I did not make it. and I bought new shoes back then, a while ago, but still wear my old ones. no money in the bank, no birthday parties to get things wild for a little while. I have no cares in the world.   Time taught me to love old things. I’m collecting rings and jewelry and I wear them with tenderness, feeling holy, meditating by the water, in the forest, creating rituals to reach something higher, higher, higher --- I want to get higher or deeper, somewhere different than this plain, static sense of existence.  Love does the job. traveling too. writing does it. music.  also art, whisky, dark-colored flowers and watching the landscape change in October. Driving on a small road somewhere in Italy with a beautiful boy and I don’t want to be anywhere else in the whole wide world than right there, with him, in that very car, smiling. But I close my eyes for one second and the moment is gone. I’m back to getting high on empty roads somewhere in Sweden and I’m the loneliest girl in the whole damn world and I just want all things beautiful. I just want the music, the literature, the art and the moments of driving in a car with a beautiful boy in Italy. but here, alone, I have no cares in the world.  I have no cares in the world. I just want it all to be beautiful.&quot;

What does it actually mean to be an independent creator (artist, author, photographer...) and why did I become one? In this replay episode [from the archive!] I share my own story of how I built my little career and how you can too ♡ www.CharlotteEriksson.com