After sixteen long and mostly miserable years spent in indoctrination centers of one sort or the other I was finally free. No more going to school, endless series of tests, and of learning things that I would later find out don`t really help me to deal with adult life.
It was time for me to move on to the next “natural” step in life – getting a job, which would set me free financially so I could choose where I want to live and how. I wanted with all my heart to finally move away from my parents.
I expected moving out to be a tough challenge to overcome, but to come through it on the other side as a different, more competent version of myself, that, while having more responsibility would also have more freedom and personal power to direct life as I please.
Then out of the periphery of my life an unexpected opportunity popped up. An e-mail newsletter mentioning Ängsbacka`s call for ESC volunteers. I gave it little attention at first but after a few weeks I chose a new life trajectory, one that involved taking long walks in beautiful fairytale-like forests of Sweden and massaging swedish women.
I knew I wanted to go because I had already experienced most of what I expected Ängsbacka to be: tasty vegetarian food, touchy-feely people, “spirituality”, attempts at living more sustainably and the joys and challenges of community living.