It's now been a little over a year since I packed up my bags in SF and moved 4000 miles to a country that I had spent approximately 2 weeks in previously. It's been a year of change, not only growing up but also adjusting to life in Sweden. When I told one of my friend Jenny about the recent developments last summer, she congratulated me on the trifecta. Moving to another country, getting engaged and having a baby. It's been quite a year!
I moved 3 times.
Bought an apartment.
Got engaged.
Got pregnant.
Learned a new language.
Made a new group of friends.
Traveled in Russia, Turkey, Denmark and Italy.
Last November I moved in together with my Swedish boyfriend into a 27 m2 apartment outside of Stockholm. In our studio on the 10th floor of an enormous building in Täby, we looked down on forests and the distant lights of Nacka. I could take a 3 minute train ride and find myself in the countryside. Most people cross-country skied around the woods, thick with snow. I ran around the frozen lakes, slipping and catching my breath in the freezing cold air. We moved again 2 months later to a 50 m2 apartment in Södermalm, in southern Stockholm. We slept in a room that fit just our bed, where we joked that we could actually have breakfast in bed (since the stove was an arms length away, accessible by the sliding door that separated the two rooms.) The only view we had was of a big yellow wall with no windows. Södermalm is hip, filled with secondhand shops, record stores, funky cafes, and enough bars and restaurants to keep you busy for years. Several months after arriving, we found out that we had to move again. Such is the fate of secondhand contracts in Sweden. Slowly we started exploring new neighborhoods, taking long walks, scouting hemnet.com for apartments. In September we won the bid on an apartment in Årsta, only we couldn't move in until the end of December. So I find myself here now, the first place I've ever owned. It's 71 m2, with two bedrooms and looks out on a small forest on one side and an elementary school on the other. A place to make our own. I just saw a deer wandering near the window. Our closest establishments are a chocolate boutique, pizza shop, a tattoo parlor & cafe, and a real estate office.
When I first met Micke, I remember hearing this melodic sound, a singsong language that made no sense to me. Just sounds. When I arrived, after taking Swedish classes once a week for several months in SF, the most I could manage was to pick out words from sentences. Airport! They are talking about airports! Or maybe not... It was exhausting and I wanted a nap after short spurts of intense concentration. Slowly, I began to gather more of the surrounding Swedish conversations. I took classes at 3 different schools, with teachers and classmates of varying ability. I met people from all over the world and learned just as much from them as I did about Swedish grammar. In all that time, there was only one other American that I met in my classes. Now it doesn't take the same concentration, I don't translate in my head, it happened without me even noticing the shift. At some point the struggle was gone. There are words that I still don't understand, especially specialized words. There is plenty of room for improvement, but I feel happy when I remember how far I've come. A week after I first arrived in Sweden I was asked about whether I had siblings and I had trouble understanding the question.
As it is with moving to any new place, I've met countless people, most of whom I'll probably never see again. Many brief friendships, with some turning into more meaningful friendships. I always forget how long it takes to really feel settled in a place. In a way it was easier coming to Sweden because I've never moved anywhere with a partner before. It's so easy to just put yourself in your partner's circle of friends. I didn't make the same efforts that I had previously when I was alone in a new city. While friends come and go, as they always do, I feel more secure and happy in the friendships I have made here now.
During a 10 day trip to Turkey last April, on the mediterranean coast, my boyfriend made a romantic scene with a bubble bath and wine, got down on one knee and surprised me by giving me his grandfather's ring that he kept around his neck. While happy beyond belief, I was also stunned and it took me a few days to get used to the idea of being a fiancé. I wasn't the girl who had an idea of my dream wedding or planned out details as a child. I've seen enough divorces to lose the pretense that marriage means happily ever after. I liked the idea of calling someone my husband though and the bond of saying your vows in front of the people that matter most to you. And a huge party. As Micke is a Swede, and we live in Sweden as sambos, with equal rights as those who are married, I just hadn't expected it. I knew he was the person I wanted to spend my life with. We had talked about having a family and made plans for the distant future, but not marriage. It was a wonderful surprise, one that has taken me a while to get used to, but that I look forward to with increasing enthusiasm.
10 days after getting engaged, I looked down at that little white stick that said
gravid and realized my hunch had been right. I was pregnant. It took 6 weeks from the day we started trying, 5 months faster than I had anticipated. I tested again 2 days later just to be sure. So here I am today, 4 days past my due date, with the biggest change soon to come. One minute it's only me and Micke but in the next minute there will be another person in the room. In all my 33 years I've just been someone's child and soon I'll be someone's mother. Everyone tells you that children will change your life, change your perspective of everything. It's hard to imagine the course my life will take in the coming years or how this little person will shape me. I can't wait.
Last week I sat with my friend Steve from college and his wife (Micke's sister) and their 4 month old baby. We laughed about how we could have never in a million years have imagined during those years in college that we would one day be family, living in Sweden with our respective Swedish siblings, that our kids would be blood related. I thought it would have been more plausible if we had met people in China (from our shared interest in the region.) He thought Pennsylvania was more likely (since we both grew up there, about an hour apart.)
Ever since my brother passed away when I was 18 from brain cancer, I've made my life about me. Selfishly focusing on enriching my own experiences. I've lived in China, Thailand, Tibet, SF and London. I travelled to remote and incredible places that will forever be a part of me. I spent all the time I could visiting friends and family, because that's what has always been most important to me. I tried any class that interested me, from drawing to acroyoga to Farsi, anything new that kept me from feeling bored by the ho-hum of daily life. In these past months, I've felt a shift to a more domestic role. Focusing on building a home here, making a nice space to raise the baby and thinking about this little family that I have created for myself. It's a new phase of life, unlike anything I have experienced before, and which hopefully will also include some backpacking and adventures along the way as well :)
