Have you ever thought that life is like a high-speed train, stopping at every station? And if you don't step off it from time to time, just to sit on a bench and look at the world outside the well-worn tracks, you may not even notice when the train pulls into the depot.

When I first started writing this, I thought I would compare myself to a squirrel on an ever-spinning wheel, but I prefer the metaphor of a railway. It seems to me to better reflect the swift modern lifestyle, the one that has swallowed the best of us.

For the past two years, the world has felt like an endless intersection of roads to me. With a one-way ticket, I hop from one carriage to another, barely keeping track of the route. Do I choose it? Not entirely, the train often moves on its own, but I can choose which carriage to jump into and when to take a break.

The end of May was tough. Hot sales season at work, exams in Norwegian, new job hunting. I am surprised at how collected I managed to be. It felt like I got myself into the Mission Impossible movie, and my character had to run on the roof of a moving train, maintaining an impassive face. Everything is under control, if Tom Cruise could do it, then so can I, right?

I still don't know if I managed to pass my B1-B2, but I can say for sure: three exams in a row feel like some kind of mental BDSM session. With each passing hour, it becomes increasingly difficult to concentrate. I think most people fail the Norwegian listening test simply because their brain flies out the window after five hours of intense work.

My advice to anyone who needs to prove their knowledge of the Norwegian language: if you can wait one semester, take reading and listening separately from writing, for God's sake.

The job search is a whole new ballgame. Especially in the lead-up to the holiday season in Norway. I naively thought I would be able to transition smoothly from one job to another, but now I've come to terms with the fact that my summer break might be a bit prolonged. Not that I'm terribly upset about it, as a break wouldn't hurt.

Considering that most of my free time is now spent re-establishing myself in web design. This time, as they say, "like a grown-up," to earn a living.

Observing from the one who is sitting on suitcase in the middle of platform: we constantly find ourselves returning to something familiar, even when seeking something new. It could be places where we once felt good, people who provided us with the emotions we craved, or activities that felt right.

I watch my friends, who like me, are talented in many fields, and I realize we share a common trait: not just impostor syndrome, but a fear of monetizing something special and failing. It's unpleasant for anyone, but creative individuals with delicate emotional structures suffer from such disappointments the most.

In my case, web design turned out to be such an occupation. I don't deceive myself, and neither should you, that it's such a creative profession. Yes, it's partly about aesthetics, but more about organization, a kind of virtual architecture. And in a sense, that's its charm - no bridge will collapse if you miss a pixel, although personally, my eye might start twitching.

So it happened that my practical benefit for my current employer turned out to be that I can build them a new website. And once again, unexpectedly, I returned to design and front-end development, from which I've taken breaks several times due to income instability and the need to hustle for promotion, if it's freelancing.

The question of self-promotion used to embarrass me in my youth, but now it doesn't bother me so much, I simply don't have time for overthinking.

Web design is my personal kind of boomerang for almost 10 years now. I got a little tired of resisting it, and as long as I have a fresh case, I decided to try again. I created a portfolio, registered wherever I could (there's still so much work ahead, it's a nightmare).

I decided to jump on this train, and honestly, sometimes I look at myself from the outside and wonder if this is really happening to me. Why am I doing this so thoroughly, will I really pursue this? Peeking out of my shell, I realize that I have a lot to catch up on; while I was busy with other things, the industry moved forward.

But still, this is the field I understand and keen into, that I grasp and digest faster than anything else. I have no idea what's next, whether I'll be able to stay in this carriage long enough to start my own route, or railway administration will offer me a ticket to transfer to something else.

The thing is that life is a journey forward, with or without a glance back. Regardless of how good and safe things were in the past, the clock won't stop ticking simply because it can't, unlike me. If I pause, the world won't notice it, only I will.

No matter how quickly I move, hopping from one stop to another, the train schedule won't change. But perhaps, the life of one passenger might, and in turn, one day this traveler may help a few lost souls at the station. Not a bad twist, is it?