Right now, we are just eight short days away from moving out of the big, luxurious, not-at-all-the-real-world apartment. Nine days from going to the US. Less than two months until the new, much smaller and most definitely real-world apartment. And about ten minutes from me entirely losing my mind.
As wonderful as living abroad has been (is, going to be…), it has definitely come at a cost as well. In less than four years, we have lived in four different apartments in Stockholm, and also back for that six period of time in our home in the US. We’ll live in two more temporary apartments until we move to the permanent one; and if that counts, which I don’t know why it wouldn’t, we essentially move four times just this summer. As if that isn’t enough, we have to move our things from where they are stored in the US to a different storage (which very luckily for us my parents own), and then some of those things will come over to Sweden in yet another container, most will be sold, and the rest will remain in the states until we come back.
So at this moment, I’m not at all regretting or feeling the least bit guilty for the indulgent and relaxed summer I had last summer. While others we know are traveling to exotic places for long vacations, we’ll have the great pleasure of going through crap we didn’t know what else to do with three years ago when we believed we would be back in only a year, and I’m sure wondering why the hell we thought that was worthy of storing. Not to mention the 100 degree SE Colorado temperatures. Or just the logistics of how we transport everything. Of course, it will be fun to discover a lot of our old things, and great to spend time with our families and I am really looking forward to seeing my dog again, but at the same time it’s hard not to dread what is coming.
I think the worst part for me of this contract life is that everything, and I feel like I mean this literally, is out of my control. I’m sure I’ve written about this before. I really want to know what is happening, and how it is happening, but as much as I want to plan (or would have started finalizing plans weeks ago), I’m just at the mercy of waiting for someone to email someone else who is inevitably on vacation. It will be a bit of an adjustment to not live the contract lifestyle, but from another perspective, we’ll finally just be “us” doing things for ourselves how we feel it is best done. I’m looking forward to that part.
And as are a lot of things right now, I really sense a feeling of change. I mean, of course I do. So much is changing. From moving, to “permanent,” to new job, to last year of high school for Meagan…this has gone from a fun little European experience, to our lives. It just feels entirely different already, and I wonder how it will feel when we land at Arlanda at the end of July, coming back, to live here, like really, really live here.
So, I’ve thought a lot about this. I feel like I’m/we’re at a different point than when I began this blog. It’s hard for me to think about interesting little Swedish anecdotes, because over nearly four years, this has just evolved to normalcy. Of course, we travel occasionally and do interesting things outside of Sweden, but I’m finding time is also an issue. This blog was a great source for a sense of self for me. It helped make sense of all of my free time here, and it helped me feel like I had some semblance of a purpose. But so much changed so quickly. Real life actually happened for me here.
So, I have a feeling this blog is reaching its end. This isn’t to say I won’t do another blog. I actually think I will, after some time probably. But, I think I want the next one to be anonymous. There are many things I’ve observed, and to be perfectly honest, they aren’t necessarily about Sweden. But, this isn’t quite over yet. There are still a few things I’ve wanted to say. There are several “I want to blog about this” ideas. So we’ll see how the next few days go, and if I can manage to squeeze in a few posts before the real fun begins.
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