Does anyone else ever get totally surprised by the realization that it’s Friday, and *whoosh!* another week has just raced by? The days pass so quickly that sometimes I think there’s a massive hoax being pulled and that the normal 60-minute hour has been shortened to 45.
The last two weeks since we moved into our new apartment have been really fun. For the first time in a long time, Simon and I are doing a lot during the week with our friends, and it’s a great change, if totally exhausting. (Our future as 70 year olds totally revealed itself yesterday evening when we both feel asleep on the couch somewhere between 9 and 10 pm.)
Friday afterwork = a girly cocktail with friends. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
Our normal weeknight routine is normally pretty predictable: come home, make dinner, relax, watch TV, play computer games (Simon), write (me), and then finally head to bed, but we’ve turned that all upside down… maybe it’s the move that’s shaken us out of our groove. In the last two weeks, we went out with friends to quiz night (and won!), saw Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy at the movie theater, had too-seldom seen friends over for fika one night and dinner another, and celebrated the arrival of the weekend with an “afterwork”—a Swedish-English word for happy hour.
Even with all the exciting and fun things we’ve been doing, the highlight of the last two weeks was definitely seeing our friends’ very new daughter, Luna Elsa Maria, 9 days old. What can I say about seeing your friends’ child that hasn’t been said before? She’s beautiful. She’s a miracle. And how blessed she is already to have been born to such special parents, who will love, cherish, support, and challenge her throughout her life.
Mamma Sofie with little Luna. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
When I think about the events of 2012 so far, though, what strikes me most is how normal it all feels. A friend asked me recently when you stop being an expat and start being something else. I’m not sure that I have a good answer to that yet, but I think I’m on my way to whatever that is.
Everyday life doesn’t feel weird anymore. I have a full time job, friends (both Swedish and international), and a family, if not the one I was born to. I speak passable Swedish. I eat weird Swedish snacks, like leverpastej on Wasa crackers, without thinking twice.
Leverpastej on Wasa crackers. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
When I think about my life here, I don’t measure successes and failures in terms of whether the move to Sweden “was worth it” anymore. It just is that way now.
There are still funny things that remind me that I’m a foreigner here. I had to text my husband yesterday to check whether I should go to the pharmacy or the grocery store to buy saline solution for my contacts. (The answer was neither, for those who are interested—apparently you go straight to the optician’s shop, or optiker.) A lot of cultural references go over my head, and I have a really hard time making jokes in Swedish.
What’s nice, though, is that the challenge of living everyday as a foreigner doesn’t feel so tough anymore. Every day that goes by is another day where I’ve learned something new–about Sweden, about the language, about life in general. Little by little, I’m getting in the groove here. This could be my home one day, I think.
All the same, I still wouldn’t call myself an immigrant in the emotional sense—I don’t feel like this is it for me, that we’ve settled here for forever. Maybe it’ll come someday, but for now, it feels like there are more adventures in store for my Swede and me. Maybe it’s Simon that will become an immigrant to the US. Maybe we’ll end up on a Caribbean island. (Now we’re talking. Why hasn’t that been on the table yet?)
In the meantime, though, I’m looking forward to figuring out whatever this in-between stage is.
A place to rest, but maybe not forever. Or at least not yet. Photo: Kate Reuterswärd
