Lagom
Dearest S.,
I learned a new word today. Usually it would be you to teach me these things. And maybe you already know this Swedish saying. But lagom is something we never found.
Loosely (and I mean very loosely) translated, it means balance. Of having “just enough but not too much” of something.
Like, having just enough wine to dull the ache of another 16-hour workday. But not so much that we don’t appreciate all the flavors that went into that glass of joy. Or traveling just enough to satiate that wanderlust, but not so much that we miss home too much. To put it in our terms.
I think of how you lost your life as you were literally standing in line to board a plane back home from a foreign city you’d never visited before.
If what they tell me is true (and it’s amazing what we tell ourselves when we are grieving), you were gone pretty quickly.
If there was a way that you (or anyone, really) was “meant” to go — honey, you did it. You never wanted to go home. You enjoyed that last trip up to the last-possible second that it lasted. Everyone should go out that way.
Lagom, as I read it, referred back to the Vikings passing their booze around the campfire. They each took a draught — just enough — and left plenty for their pals.
Yes, socialist shit. lol. I swear I just heard you say that.
Now, I’m not saying that happiness is limited in this world. (Although it feels like there really isn’t enough to go around.)
But I think you took your share of happiness and pain. You had enough of both.
I wonder whether it’s the imbalance that keeps the rest of us alive. Until enough really is enough.
Speaking of enough, perhaps I have kept you here long enough with my letters to you. I do plan to type to you privately, about things I so desperately wish I could get your opinion on.
Or maybe I won’t. Maybe you had enough of all this and anything more would be too much.
That doesn’t mean I will forget you. It just means that Paris and Athens are high atop my must-do list now. I need to see the things firsthand that shaped you. You’ll still be my guide, I know it.
And, as always, I am only too happy to follow you wherever you want to take me next.
Love you bunches,
Goddess