This time last week, I had absolutely no idea my life would change in a major in a mere handful of hours. Last week Friday we got the call that my husband had been offered a job in Stockholm, Sweden. Cue much excitement followed by extreme bewilderment, possible confusion and generally overwrought emotion.
Bye bye Finland. You’ve been good to us in so many ways. I’m sure we’ll be back…
In just over seven years of being together, my other half and I have lived on three continents. When we moved to Finland, we never thought we’d be staying as long as five years, but we did and life was good. In fact, life in Finland was too good, too easy, too comfortable and that made it unbelievably difficult to uproot the life we’d created here to start all over again, however…
If I’m honest, I’ve been itching to move, not because I want to leave Finland – mä rakastan Suomea – but because I want to see more of the world and live in different countries, to experience a different culture from within. Hence the bitter-sweet excitement about moving to Sweden.
In many ways, Sweden is like Finland and won’t be too great a culture shock. But that’s what we thought when we moved from South Africa to Australia so I’m not going to kid myself into thinking’ home-away-from-home’ again. I want to approach Sweden with a fresh perspective ready to embrace and immerse myself in the culture and language.
So… there goes any and all attempts at winning NaNoWriMo yet again. I’m convinced the universe is trying to tell me something by always throw me curve balls in November. We are now furiously doing all the things required for an international move asap and plan to be in our new Swedish abode before Christmas.
I am going to be super sad to leave Finland, a country I’ve been entranced by since I was 15, to leave our friends and the known way of life here, but I am equally excited to experience something new and can’t wait to see how these new experiences will affect and influence my writing – not that I anticipate much of that happening between all the imminent packing and admin!
With much love and fondness, I bid Finland farewell and say ‘nähdään’ because I absolutely intend to be back in Helsinki to see friends, eat pulla and drink kossu.
Stockholm!!
Sverige, vi kommer!
