My bitter-sweet visit in Toruń and Chełmno, Poland 🇵🇱

Thursday, 21st of December 2023 [106]

My 3 weeks of holiday in Poland was meant to be happy, creative and peaceful. Time to unwind, with lots of writing, lots of family time, lots of physical activity, creating more healthy habits…

If I’ve learned anything about life though in my 41 years of existence it if that Life rarely goes to plan. Life is a force of itself and it does its own thing and we can like it or not, but it won’t change.

A few things have gone as planned though. I continue reading the book ‘The Untethered soul’ I started before my holiday and the author of this book - Michael A. Singer explains that the source of all our struggling with life is our preference. A preference for things to go certain way in order for us to feel better as well as fear of other things which in the past caused us struggling.

Therefore we live our lives chasing our desires and avoiding our fears. All we want is to feel good inside, but by clinging to things we love and avoiding things we loathe we hold on to both, blocking the way for our life energy to circulate free. Instead we should relax and let go of both, while cherishing and honouring everything life brings in front of us.

That’s something I have been learning to do this year. It’s not an easy task, I can assure you, but deep in my heart I know M. Singer speaks truth, because I know how it feels when this life energy circulates freely inside of me. I want to feel it circulating freely again and for that reason I decided to follow the advice from his book.

Avoiding my fears has been something that has become a habit of mine’s. At first little fears of sorting out my admin, of picking up the phone, of dealing with uncomfortable things have grown into huge fears with increadibly ugly heads which now keep me in a cage of sort, paralised and unable to deal with anything.

So I started practicing with a ‘low hanging fruit’ as M. Singer calls the little aggrevations that presents themselves to us on a daily basis as well as exposing myself to challenging situations on purpose. Challenge can be physical, like pushing myself out to go for a run and to continue to run for longer than the last time. Or it can be mental, like visiting my grieving family.

The Bitter

The latter took me on a long journey across the Europe to visit my uncle Zygmunt who is currently in a coma in the hospital in Chełmno, Poland. In my last 2 posts I talked about my uncle and about this long, 24h journey and today I’ll share with you my 4 days visit at my cousin’s town - Toruń, coupled with a few captures from Chełmno.

Hospital in Chełmno

The pretty building you see on the cover of this post is the hospital in Chełmno, where my uncle was transported just a day before my arrival to Toruń. Had I arrived a few days earlier, I’d most likely have more pictures from Toruń, because the hospital my uncle was in was in a walking distance from my cousins place.

Instead, every day of my stay there, my auntie and I would get in my car and drive 20 miles to Chełmno to visit my unconscious uncle. Just like the times when I had to look after my mum when she was in despair many times when I was younger, I put up a brave face and face the challenges despite how it makes me feel inside. This time I tried using it for my growth, by overcoming my resistance for the challenging situation.

Nothing inside me wanted to get up from bed, get into the car and drive in snowy weather conditions to a nearby town on my summer tyres. Especially in the unknown surroundings and on the right side of the road, in my car designed for the left side traffic. As well as nothing inside me wanted to see my strong, funny uncle laying there unconscious, with all the aparatus feeding and helping my uncle’s heart to beat and his lungs to breathe.

Nobody rejoices in the face of sickness and possible passing of the loved ones, but sadness and grief are too a part of life. The challenging part which we need to learn to face, hopefully without disturbing our inner peace, because sooner or later in life every single one of us will stumble across these events.

My cousin and her partner have to go to work every day and visiting hours in the emergency care unit are not work - friendly. My auntie doesn’t drive and her health has deteriorated grately in these past few weeks of extreme stress and despair. Taking a bus which would take hours to get there for sometimes maybe only 10 minutes of seeing her husband is really not an option, so I asked her to take advantage of my visit and go there every day while she can.

Did I manage to face this challenge without closing inside and disturbing my inner peace? I would lie if I said yes.

Yes, I stood up to the challenge. I braved outside into the elements and drove for an hour each way to the hospital for 3 days in a row. Yes, I hold my uncle’s hand while talking some funny things to him and asking him to wake up to tell me what he experienced on the other side after a few moments of his clinical death.

Yes, I did my best to keep my heart open while placing my hand on uncles heart and praying for his to keep working and getting better.

Yes, I hold my auntie in my arms when she cried softly while watching my uncle in this poorly state and after hearing the doctor saying that his heart only work at 27-30% of its full capacity.

The lesson?

Outside of hospital though I closed to life. I slept till mid day, avoiding waking up to this situation. My eating habits deteriorated to the point I started having more and more allergic reactions that I haven’t experienced for long weeks. Meditation? Exercise? What was it again? I almost forgot about all the healthy habits I took up since I decided to make my health a priority earlier this year.

Every day I planned to go for an evening walk and take some pretty pictures for my blog, but instead I sat down to play jigsaw puzzle with my cousin, surrounded with various snacks I wasn’t supposed to eat and ignoring soft wispers of reasonable part of me. I closed down and indulged and the consecuences showed up really fast.

Of course, I could say no to the challenge and not go to Toruń at all, not face seeing my uncle and auntie in these times of despair and hide instead. But I went and faced it the best I could. My best clearly needs more work to be better. I need to practice letting go and not closing more on a daily basis. I need to learn to stick to the healthy habits which support my general well-being despite the circumstances.

The Sweet

First of all - my niece fell in love with the Mickey Mouse set of pyjamas, socks and slippers I bought for her ‘from Santa’ 😉 The evening I arrived my auntie told me Madzia is a very fussy little girl and always says what she thinks. Just like her mum, my cousin. Just like me too, which made me chuckle. I promised not to get upset if Madzia doesn’t like the gift.

I had nothing to worry though! Throughout my stay there she was wearing it every single day. When I talked to my cousin a few days later she also said that Madzia told her she has a really nice cousin. That’s super sweet considering I didn’t even play with her much.

Next part of sweet is the fact that one of those dark, December evenings my cousin and I decided to cheer ourselves up by going out for a nice meal. The restaurant LOFT79 was placed at Ul. Polna in Toruń.

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The mood inside was just perfect for the weather. Warm and cosy and the waiter offerred a winter tea, which I gladly ordered and thoroughly enjoyed. It was a delightful mixture of sweet, sour and spicy. Just like my visit in Toruń.

The waiting time for our food was quite long, which was understanable cosidering many people had the same idea of popping round to this cute little restaurant.

Waiting time is always a good opportunity to visit ladies room. Here the mood was as pleasant as in the sitting area.

My cousin and I looked for something interesting, possibly something that might surprise us with unusal taste. We both ordered spinach soup with egg and cauliflower and mushroom dumplings to share for starters.

My auntie refused to taste any mushrooms dishes, as she claims people who go mushroom hunting and sell them to these places always give the worst, bug eaten mushrooms for sale 😂 Contrary to my auntie’s opinion, Aba and I attacked the mushrooms dumplings without any preconceptions and before I took my camera out to capture it, there was not much left to capture anymore! The dressing was even more delicious that the dumplongs themselves.

My auntie is my mum’s true sister. Even though out of 4 sisters she was probably the wealthest, as uncle was a major in the army, growing up in extreme poverty took a toll on her too. Just like my mum, she also scanned the menu for the cheapest dish possible - pasta with salmon. Then she moaned that it wasn’t an Italian style pasta she once ate in a restaurant with my other cousin, but fat and ugly looking pasta 😂

Seeing that I indulge in not so healthy habits, I decided for a healthy dish to balance it out. A fatty salmon with veggies seemed like a perfect option for me. It was very lightly cooked for my taste, but delicious nonetheless.

My cousin went all out on a winter burger. One dish that I never order in a restaurant, as I always associate burgers with fast food available at the bus stops or McDonalds. This version of a burger was very different than what I had in mind. There was no bun, but the meat and cheese was placed on a bed of salads and hashbrowns. A true feast for the eyes and mouth which my cousin happily shared with us to avoid a huge amount of calories like she said 😁

Outside the restaurant the winter was in full swing! Everything was covered by pretty whiteness of just fallen snow.

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We took this opportunity for a rare family picture. It doesn’t happen very often that the 3 of us are in the same place at the same time.

Just like the tittle says - my visit in Toruń was bitter-sweet, just like life. Challenges are entangled with pleasures in this weird and wonderful journey we call life.

Before I go, let me apologise to a few people that I once notified that I sent them HSBI Units a while ago. These were the winners of #HPUD, Ecency leaderboard as well as my own little giveaways. I have sent Hive to the wrong account @hivebasicincome which is scamming the silly people like me, who don’t pay attention

Wrong account - do not send here!

rather than correct one @steembasicincome and as a result the units were never added, until I resent hive to the correct account.

Correct account

Please, double check where you’re sending your transfers before you make a schoolgirl mistake like I did! I apologise to @kam5iz @thebighigg @melonqueen @ninahaskin @ewkaw @coolmidwestguy and your Units should be credited to your HSBI account by now.

Until next time 💙