Ps. I Love You

Ps. I love you

Tattoo Info:

Ps. I love you, I made this tattoo as a memory of a person I love from the bottle of my heart. This  tattoo was made after our break up as a memory of the love I feel for him, not only by that time but forever. It was a lifelong relationship that turned into friendship and to my  soulmate. Ps stands for the initials of his name and the whole phrase is taken from the movie “ps. I love you”. We had seen the movie together and a few months later during Easter I got an gift in my Easter egg from him, it was a neckless  with a charm which you could open and inside it was hidden a note, written just this “Ps. I love you”. This tattoo stands for true love & respect that lies inside our relationship together. This man is an incredible person, I respect him and I will always love him and he will always have a special place in my heart.

Follow your Heart; I made this tattoo in the same time as the one above, there is a connection between this two. It was hard to take decision to break up after a 9 years relationship but my passion and love had turn into a love just base on friendship. I was questioning myself over and over again, do I make the right decision…  the hardest decision in my life but a life decision I had to do for be able to follow my heart. 

“Thank You for the BEAUTIFUL ways you touched my Life”

I was young when I met P, I had just turned 18 years old and just moved into my sister in Gothenburg. It was end of summer and I was out with P.I.S.T.E on a nightclub we used to go too that summer. When I saw P for the first time, my heart hit a few extra punches, I basically fell for him from the first sight, I can remember this moment since yesterday… some memories from your past  that you never forget. 

I remember the moment like I were standing out on the street just in front the window to the club where we were going, P was inside looking out and met my eyes, he looked at me and gave a wink to get in, what I didn’t know by then is that it wasn’t me he wanted to get in it was my friend standing next to me something he told me much later. Anyway we made out that night, and exchange each others numbers. 

The week after we start to  hang out, weeks went to months but just as friends. I fell crazy in love with this man from the first night I saw him, it was hard hanging around him time after time but I couldn’t resist not be with him and the hope we may would be together one day. By the time I met him he was just ending a relationship that didn’t worked out and he told me it was complicated and that he wasn’t ready for a new relationship and not into me in that way. Even when I look back on it today I do not really know why he hanged out and spend that much time with me by feeling that way… 

After a month or two we spend a night together and ended up in his bed, I had slept over several times before but just as friends, he was sober since he had a break from all kind of alcohol, I was little round under my feet and the only thing I was thinking off was to be in his arm and the imagination about how he would feel like. I remember I talked a lot and try to push him to make out with me, he became upset and we started sort of a little fight, I felt embarrassed and wanted to leave in the middle of the night but he didn’t let me go… we went back to bed next to each other, I remembered I  felt embarrassed and hurt.. after some time laying there quiet he turned around and start hugging me and said he change his mind, I remember we had sex together that night but it was a weird and uncomfortable moment after almost forcing him into it, the day after he had to leave early because of a friend and I went home.  That Sunday I remember I reflected a lot about my feelings and about that night with him. I realised I was so in love with him and I felt used in the situation, I decided for myself to let go and I wrote him a text that I didn’t wanted to hang out more. I told him I had to much feelings for him to just hang as friends… he didn’t said that much more than it was accepted and understandable.

It went about 2 weeks before he was texting me again, this time saying he wanted to invite me for dinner and that he had something to tell me… I had been thinking of him a lot and hard to get him out from my mind so I accepted his invitation. The weekend after I was at his home for dinner, I remembered he had prepared tacos and we were sitting in his sofa.. it was quiet and I asked him, so what did you wanted to tell me???

He told me that he been thinking and that he realised that our time together had turned into some kind of interest, he had by the time start get to know me as a person and he like spending time with me and he didn’t wanted to lose that. He also said he wasn’t ready to jump into something directly, he wanted it to go slow. I respected his honesty and we continued seeing each other for some more weeks but nothing really happened between us. We continued dating each other but it was more like hanging out there wasn’t any invites for kisses or cuddles so I started once again take a step aside.. I think it past a week or two before it was time for a model competition outside Gothenburg city. By the time I met P he was doing some modelling and took well care of himself, I think a lot of this explained his attitude agains me, he could be arrogant one moment when in the next be super sweet, he was a guy hard to know where you had him at the time. He was tall, well trained and good looking guy, a guy you just dream off and imagining to be with. He had tons of girls around him even if he didn’t see its himself because I do to know if he felt in the same way. I was also a very jealous girl after being cheated in my last relationship so it was a hard situation to deal with when I was around him.

When I was asked to join the competition I was questioning if I should join or not, but my heart was so into him that I couldn’t do anything else than say yes and keep my hope up. I spent the night at the competition with him and his 3 friends, I was the only girl joining so it must have meant something to bring me along. I remember the night was over and P was still at this point, no drinking. He was the one driving home that night and I was sitting in the middle of the backseat with his two friends one sleeping on each of my shoulder, I raised my look and met his eyes in the mirror, he looked at me for the first time, a look that you can misunderstand. I remember that road trip as a long silent ride where only me and him existed,  a real tense moment between us. When we arrived at my parking lot that night, he suddenly made an excuse that he forgot his keys and asked if he could stay with me that night, what could I say… after that moment we became a couple and after only 4 months he moved into me and my sister in our 2room apt… 

That was the start of our 9 years relationship together, a relationship with struggles, differences, love, traveling and not at least RESPECT. P was a few year older than me, by the time we met I was taking my first step becoming an adult, take my graduation and to find a job. It was a time with lot of changes and a time where I try to find myself and know what I wanted to become. I had just been graduated from high school, an hotel and restaurant education. My first years ahead I spend in the restaurant business, I had several extra jobs and worked hard at times for in the next time be able to be flexible to travel. Me and P started to explore the world together and our first trip abroad went to Thailand in autumn 2004. We went for visit and explore Thailand, Thailand just because it was an interesting country to visit and P’s brother had lived there for some years back. We saw the opportunity to see him and in the same time explore the beauty of Thailand. It was a place that would become a special place for both of us, a special place in our hearts and a place that I would return to over and over again later.

We were back and our life moved on, from moving around in Gothenburg a few times we finally bought our first apt together in summer/ autumn 2006 if I not mistaken… we were happy to finally get our own apt and moving back to Gamlestaden where we stayed when we met and where my parents has been growing up. I was by this time working as a franchise for a coffee bar called Waynes Coffee in the city, the book store had just decide to change the café and turn into franchise so I went to Stockholm to be educated the concept, a good period and time for me. I loved having the café bar, serving and taking care of my costumers. By being responsible for a café in that age gave me confident and learned me a lot of lessons. I worked a lot, 5-6 times a week and the days were long since I was on my own most of the time except weekends and lunch time but I manage it all well,ordering, check ups, food preparations, serving customer you name it.. After a year and a half I realised I needed a break, me and P had starting talking about going on a backpacking trip after visiting Thailand the first time, to leave and take a longer break. Our thoughts became reality after a year after taking time for planning and organizion concerning our jobs. I handover my job to a girl during a 3 months period and we finally left for a 3 moths trip to Southeast Asia. 

We left in January 2007 a trip that would take us to Thailand, Malaysia, Borneo and Philippines, a trip we well had organised together during almost a year of time. A trip that has become a special memory for both of us I think I can say. In Sweden is very common to do this kind of trip once in a lifetime specially during this time in life. To leave for the unknown and explore the world far away, to learn, explore and see other cultures. This was a trip include it all and a moment when we realised we had this interests in common, to travel and explore. By going back to Thailand we also got the chance to visit P’s brother again and his family. We traveled from the north of Thailand to the south, across the country with bus, train and boat, across the islands as Koh chang, Koh Phan Nga and Koh Lipe, we continued down to Malaysia, Langkawi, Pangkor and Kuala Lumpur, we flew over to Borneo for explore all part of Sabah by visiting the islands in the west, climbing the Mount Kinabalu, doing the rafting in the south,going on djungle treks and visiting the Orangutang centre in the east. After we head over for the Philippines, a country far away and not that well explored for us West Indies. A month full of adventures, spending time in the ghetto in Manila to visit Islands on the east as west. One of the most beautiful places I have seen, by living with a family on their island in Coron to traveling to unknown places across the country, by tenting alone on an island far aways in the east to traveling down to Donsol for swimming with the giant whale sharks. A period full of excitements and an eye opener for different cultures and another view  of living life to full. A time when you forget all about technology, material things and just are living in the moment and what the moment have to bring. It was a period of 3 months when we were giving the time to ourself, the technology wasn’t developed enough and free wifi didn’t existed instead I got my travel diary where I wrote down our journey, a diary I still have today and once in a while open up to read a chapter and dream back. I wonder if times as this will never happened again with the kind of society we living in today but for sure this is memory that I will carry with me and that will stay in my heart forever and memories I will bring up time after time along my journey.

We were back to our routines in Gothenburg, I was back at my job but something had change. The months abroad had gave me some inner peace and show me how simple life can be, take the days at it comes and be present in the moments, it was hard to be back to routines,  6 days a week job with the pressure to always have the responsible for everything at work. I was in a period when I started questioning myself, I had come to a point when I start questioning my choices, after our backpacking trip I went into a one year of trying to find what I wanted to do with my life. I quit my job and start working in different cafes around Gothenburg city, still with responsibility but less pressure. I remember that I felt very lost during this period, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I never liked to study and I always been telling myself to not study more than max 2 years and the education need to be more practical than theoretical. One day when I was sitting surfing possible educations on the web I came across this education “visual merchandiser” a education placed in Gothenburg, it was a specific program during 2 years period base on 60% practical subjects, For be able to get into this program you had to past interviews and different practical test, I did my applications and past the interviews and finally manage to get a place in the class.

I started to study in autumn 2008, I wanted to find my thing, I wanted to make a life with things who I was passionate about, I had always been a very creative person with lot of practical skills, I loved to work with my hands, transform things, from old to new, paint, make jewellers, you name it... The studies past fast, 2 years was past before I knew it. It was a new life, with new friends, new hobbies an exited period, a period when I needed to start thinking about my future and where I lived n more creative life by doing paintings, jewellers and home deco. During my education I had the opportunity to past 3 periods of internships, one of them was at IKEA. I was passing a 2 months period in the department of Communication and Interior Design. This is a job that always been fascinating me since I was a kid, and a little dream while walking around the stores when I was little. I remember I had that thoughts passing me while I were walking the store with my parents many years earlier, the thought of  imagine myself  to be part of creating all the decorations in the store one day. IKEA was a popular company for all of us in school and for young swedes, many of us wanted a spot in this business. The school I study in had an partnership with IKEA, IKEA created this trainee program where they took several students from the schools and gave them a year of education within the service of communication and interior  design department. 

By the time P supported me more than anything. He knew how important it was to me to find something that I was passionate about, I always told him that I couldn’t spend a lifetime in a place when I counted the hours until I could go home. By having the opportunity to apply to this trainee program I felt that didn’t had another choice than to do it. I felt I didn’t wanted to lose the opportunity that could change my life but by the time I didn’t know how much that choice would change me and our relationship. 

After a summer of waiting I finally got the news that I was one of the chosen ones for the IKEA Trainee program, but what came as a big surprise was that they only had a spot left and it was in a city far away, a city call Helsingborg in the south of Sweden. I finally had the opportunity in my hands, an opportunity that would change my life and I couldn’t anything else than to say yes. A month later I moved out from our apartment in Gothenburg, I moved on my own down to Helsingborg, a new journey took its beginning. I got my own little place in the heart of the city, I start biking to work, worked in the gym during the evening and spend every 2nd weekend in Gothenburg with P while he past the other ones with me in The south. We past a year delegated from each other but in the same time that brought us closer together by supporting each other harder in our choices, he saw this as an big opportunity for my future and I can’t remember that we  ever fight about the choice that I had made. I think we at the time looked on this as an opportunity for both of us and something positive for our relationship after living in an everyday routine. I was sure about our relationship, our love, I still had the butterfly in my stomach and I felt strongly supported by him. We had for long wanted a change in our life and daily routines and saw it as an opportunity to explore and see other part of Sweden. My time is Helsingborg was a mazing and I loved every moment of that journey, work, my new friends and the south of Sweden is crazy beautiful, specially during summer time. I was not the only trainee in the store, there was a 2nd spot in the same department and it was giving to a guy from Stockholm. When our year came to the end they only got one permanent place in the team to fill up. Me and the other guy both of us was happy in Helsingborg and within the store, we both wanted to stay but only one could have the place. When the moment came who they had been chosen I had already started doing some research for eventual jobs as a visual merchandiser in other  IKEA stores in Sweden but there was no jobs available by the time, the competition in Sweden is very high so I had also open my mind and start looking for possibility in Norway and they had several. From the beginning I had the stomach feeling that they would chose the guy to stay since its not that many guys within the departments in Sweden and he also made good job and I was right. Luckily I was invited to Oslo right after sending my application and they offered me to move over to start working for IKEA Norway. I had 2 months left in Helsingborg and start preparing the move together with P, we had 2 months to organise our both lives in Sweden to start up something new in a new city and country. This was a very exited period for both of us, we had a few years earlier talking about moving to Norway one day, to make some extra money for be able to travel more and we saw this as moment we been waiting for but what we didn’t know was that this choice would change our relationship for ever.

I was the first one moving over to Oslo, it was august 2011, I had just fix us an amazing apartment not far from the city center, it was an old candy factory who had turned into apartments. I was exited for my new job, my new home town and for our new life in Norway. It took P a month before he could moved after me, before he had find himself a job and organised to rent out our apartment in Gothenburg. I know that the final decision to move to Oslo was mine, it was because it was the only way for me to stay in IKEA and I know that I had to be open for opportunity abroad if I took the place as trainee within the company from the beginning. I knew I had went into a company and position where I had to be flexible and put my job in first place at this place, even before our relationship.  I was happy to be in Oslo, the 3 first month was hard but I had P and we did our best to cheer each other up and support each other in the best possible way, we was in a city who have all the seasons. We both loved to work out and be out in the nature. We spend the summer by running in Songsvann, swimming in the lakes, biking in the country side and skiing in the mountains during winter. I made a lot of friends at work, I start hanging out after work and  by nights and I really enjoyed my new life abroad. I was happy with P, he made me do what ever I wanted, he was not that social and preferred doing things on his own and didn’t had problem I that I was out with my friends. By the time when everything was happening around me I suddenly felt I had started to change since I started working for IKEA. I had suddenly becoming more social that I used to be or at least more passionate in my life when it came to everything, I enjoyed life in another dimension than I used to do and I had so much energy, for my job, workout, night life etc. I remember I was very happy in this moment but I had start realising I slowly changes that started to affect our relationship. Suddenly I start feeling me and P was growing apart, we had our problems from the past like all couples have but something else had change in me. I had by the time in IKEA find my place in life, I had passion for what I did and I was happy spending time at work and with people sharing the same interests as myself. P didn’t felt this within is job, he saw his job as making money. We didn’t shared the same picture of working life and I think that was hard to me to accept, he had his passion for sports and he was really good at it. He like and preferred staying only with me or with his really closed friends and family on his free time, he wasn’t that social like me and wanted to spend time with me together with my friends. Since I been a kid I always been feeling the best when I surrounded by people, both as being in a couple and by being single, I love the feeling of being surrounded by people I like and people who give me positive vibes. Me and P didn’t put the same attention to each other that we used to do and I felt that I was one of the one that always tried to keep our relationship together, giving my love and attention all the time because I was deeply in love with P almost to the very end of our relationship but things came to change when you not get the same attention that you give.

I had just been falling for someone at my job, someone who had start giving me attention in a way that I no longer felt I in my current relationship. It was hard to accept this feelings starting growing  inside me but nothing I could hide or push away, it was just to realise the fact, the fact that I was falling into someone else…

Tattoo text translated from Swedish;

“Sometimes when we do not have the courage to change, everything changes around us instead to lead us in on a new road. 

You have not prevented yourself from growing and developing, the evolution has requires it.”

P is probably my biggest LOVE of life but love change and people change, we were both was young when we met and we didn’t know how the world would change around us and how big impact our future would made on us. To keep an long relationship last you need to give and take everyday, an everyday life fight for Love . By the experience I have to get to know that being single is not easy but being in couple is not easier, you have to make efforts everyday for make an relationship stay together. You have to give attention everyday and not take each other for granted, something that I think is very common and destroy long relationships one after one and just what happened to us. I think it came a point in myself where I didn’t felt the same attention anymore, I felt I was taken for granted, I remembered myself imagining things that I wish P would have done differently and change, make more efforts and be more passionate in our relationship. It was first when a guy at work got his eyes on me and start giving me his attention, attention that I haven’t felt in years. A curiosity had grown inside me and by feeling that way I felt something was missing in our relationship, passion and attraction has always be an key ingredient in a relationship for me, something that only you as a couple share with each other, without that ingredient you are only friends. Our last year together I payed attention to everything in our relationship and I start reflecting about our life together, our everyday life, our visions and about how our future would look like. By the time I slowly start loosing my attraction and feelings that I for years had felt for P, I felt I had change. I think we still was the same as couple but me as a person and the hunger for life had change inside, I wanted something more that P couldn’t offer me. I didn’t had a plan to break up with P it was painful of just thinking of it but I had start feeling further away from him within my feelings, he was my best friend, my soulmate and it was impossible to imagine my life without him but the attraction for this guy at work had grown stronger and the thought of having a passionate relationship or a love affair was tempting. It was after a night out with my friends when this guy kissed me goodbye I realised I have to end our relationship. I had been cheated on many years before and learn from that, that I would never do the dame mistake as him to hurt somebody that bad that I been. That night when I came home I felled asleep next to P with a big stone in my stomach and the tears in my throat with the wisdom the other morning knowing I would end up a 9 years relationship that we built up together. A 9 year of friendship, travels, respect, support and so much love and caring for each other. It came to be the hardest and most difficult decision I ever made in my life and the impact, consequences and scars that would turn back on me after. I’m forever grateful for our years together and the love and respect that lies in within that relationship. The beautiful persons we was and still are to each other even today 10 years later, a forever friendship made upon love and respect. It was a tough decision but a decision I had to make for both of us, a decision for myself to be able to follow the feelings of my heart but one thing would stay forever  and it's PS. I love you.

// Isabell