Personal Essays - RABAGAS Magazine

Watercolor-and-ink illustration of two friends sharing beers in Hamar, a cat playing with a red string on a rural porch, and a bus travelling through the Norwegian countryside.

Friendship

Since Zero Years Old

A weekend in Hamar and Stange with a friend I have known since birth — old conversations, new music, a cat with a red string, and the quiet kind of friendship that never needed any work.

A solitary person walking through a quiet landscape at dawn, symbolising reflection, understanding, and a new perspective.

Mental Health

Inside Bipolar Disorder

Exploring what it means to receive a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and ADHD in adulthood. Combining personal experience with careful reflection, the series examines mania, depression, ADHD, identity, and the long process of understanding a life that suddenly begins to make sense.

A sparsely furnished room filled with moving boxes, a small hotplate and a saucepan on a table, with evening light shining through a large window overlooking a quiet rural landscape.

Personal Essays

Between Two Places

After a year in the countryside, my belongings are packed into boxes and I still don't know where I'll be living next. Between one chapter ending and another beginning, I find myself reflecting on solitude, uncertainty, and the strange comfort of simply being in between.

A lone traveller with a backpack walks along a wet road at sunset, overlooking a broad mountain landscape and distant water beneath dramatic clouds.

Travel Letters

Travel Letter 4: New Roads

Thirty-three hours by coach. Too little sleep, almost no money left, and one final stretch still to go. Somewhere between Brussels and Oslo, I realise that getting home isn't always about arriving. Sometimes it's simply about trusting that you'll get there.

Travel Letters

Travel Letter 2: Trying to Find My Feet

Sometimes the hardest part of travelling isn't arriving somewhere new. It's walking through the door and becoming one of the strangers.

Travel

Travel Letter 1: Taking to the Skies

From London's hidden workers' cafés to quiet walks along the Thames, this is a travel letter about slowing down, reconnecting with an old friend, and discovering a city through the moments that rarely make it into guidebooks.

A quiet room with an open suitcase, a backpack on the floor, and soft daylight through a window, suggesting someone who has not fully settled in.

Personal Essays

Some People Never Fully Unpack

Some people unpack the moment they arrive. Others leave a backpack in the corner for weeks. An essay about belonging, restlessness, and the quiet question of whether some of us are simply built for the spaces in between.

A sparsely furnished room filled with moving boxes, bags, and a single chair beside a window, suggesting the uncertainty of an unfinished move.

Personal Essays

On High Alert

Sometimes the hardest part isn't knowing where you're going. It's not knowing whether you'll have anywhere to go at all. An essay about uncertainty, survival, and a nervous system that refuses to stand down.

A little blue suitcase, a winter train, and a mind that refused to slow down.

Personal Essays

Running From Myself

A train north, a kebab wrapped like a work of art, and a mind running faster than the world around it. An honest essay about hypomania, movement, and the strange comfort of never quite knowing where you'll spend the night.