Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own story.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Everything changed when I learned to honor my body instead of fighting it. When I learned to take care of it, like a precious castle to protect this weary heart. To stop harming it, punishing it for looking like this or that, feeling like this or that. I don't look like they all told me I had to do, but I'm healthy and strong and vital. That is enough.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Fear is the thing that makes the heart grow.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Find something you love and go for it with all your heart. No excuses, no plan B. Never settle for anything less than you know you can do. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Find what makes you happy and go for it with all your heart. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it.

— Charlotte Eriksson

For I have nothing to lean on, nowhere to call my home and there is nowhere I will go for Christmas to rest my head and touch familiar walls. I have no degree to show on paper or employment to take care of my health or the reassurance that I can pay my rent. And I have no right to complain because this is the road I choose, and I built it myself, not really knowing where I wanted it to lead, but I have hope in all things ahead and behind, and I am learning to let myself go. Forget my own ego and believe that what I am doing is grander than my very own self.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Freedom can choke you if you don't know how to handle it.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home, and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking, and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked, and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realize that that is enough to be happy. There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.

— Charlotte Eriksson

Great growth comes from loneliness. You have time to develop, dwell in your own mind and go a bit mad. All great people are a bit mad. That’s good to remember. Don’t escape it. Great growth comes from time spent in foreign lands, watching foreign people with foreign cultures. It makes you forget about your own land and race and town for a while. Great growth also comes from rooting yourself into one place from time to time. Unpack your bags, get a nice bed, a bookshelf, some friends. Learn to show up, keep in touch, stick around. Growth comes in all sort of forms and shapes, everywhere at all times, and it’s yours to take and consume. Do what ought to be done. Here and now, to get you somewhere — anywhere.

— Charlotte Eriksson

He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my head, and though he said he’d come back one day I know a broken promise from a right one for I have used them myself and there is no coming back. Minds like ours are can’t be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay.

— Charlotte Eriksson