Get The Hell Out

Photo by Susanne Svantesson

y whole family worked in the mine. My dad, my step dad, and my mum. My grandfather still works there. He’s taking care of closing the mine. I’m 23 now, but when I was about 15 I was a cleaner in the mine. It felt safe since my whole family was there. I knew no one could fuck with me. But being a cleaner in a mine has to be one of the dreariest jobs ever. It was pure misery. I was really angry the whole time, and it felt like the mineworkers tried to make the job harder on purpose. They all had porn posters on their lockers. I would go around executing tiny feminist actions, tearing down photos and stuff. They had the same nudie wall calendars in the cafeteria too. I couldn’t understand it. Did the mine buy them all? Did the guys get together to go find exactly the same calendars? It was so weird! But I guess it was fun to be a kid in Laisvall. It depended a bit on who you were. I was the kind of kid that always aced the tests and never had any problems with friends. There were absolutely no punks here, but there were metal kids. One guy I knew, Erik, had insanely long hair and was an utter softie. You know, the way those guys mostly are. Extremely sweet. I played ice hockey, did cross country skiing, played badminton, went horseback riding, and took dance classes. We hung out at the youth centre. One of the peculiar things about the youth centre were the 30-year-old guys who hung out there. It was us—the 12 and 13-year-olds—and them. They never dated any of the girls. I don’t think they ever dated girls actually. We were all just friends and they had cars so sometimes they would drive us home. There wasn’t really a “cool” way of dressing. Fruit of the Loom hoodies were big, but apart from that people could look very, very geeky. There were a lot of very short jeans and Wellys. I never got wasted while I was living in Laisvall. I actually didn’t start drinking until I was 20. But sure, people were drinking, moonshine and stuff, from about 14 years old. There would be parties in people’s houses. When I was 13 I got to go to school in the big city. That was exciting. There were people my own age to hang out with. And there were boys. The boys back home were never that interesting, or they were too old. But after only a year in the city, I was bored. There really isn’t that much to do if you’re 14. Plus, my boyfriends were around 18, so they could go out to bars while I was stuck at home alone. Sometimes we went to sucky parties in people’s apartments and then everyone would leave and come back at two in the morning. I applied to a faraway grad school to get out of there. I was getting by on my own at 15. I wanted to prove myself so badly. I got a study grant, and my parents are divorced so I got child support too. I think I had about €300 in total. That was before I paid rent and everything. I’ve never saved so much money in my life as I did during those years. Sure I’d shoplift food every now and then, when I was sick of eating crispbread, but my main trick for survival was stuffing myself at the cafeteria in school. It’d last me all day, and then it was OK to just have a little rice or whatever at night. I think it was good to live under those circumstances. It made me economical. I’m not afraid of being poor, because I know I can handle it. ANNA NÄSSLANDER