Two years! How did we get here?
We moved to Stockholm in early April 2021, in the midst of the most severe lockdown set for Ireland. We moved from a society that was forced to find joy in recording TikTok dances alone in their homes, forbidden from venturing beyond a 2km radius, to a society that was freely socialising, working as usual and meeting friends in person, mask free to record TikTok dances. Blinding Lights will always remind me of people trying to make the best out of a really shitty situation.
Flying to Stockholm from Dublin in April 2021
Leila had been born in Holles Street in August with hardly a look at her Papa who was encouraged to stay away as much as possible. In fairness, Leila being our third child, I was glad of the silence. With the other children, over excitable grandmothers and family members bounded into our little bubble, over flowing in the anxiety of not knowing what state new mother and baby were to be found in. My own mother would work herself up to such a commotion that she would need to hold the new baby to her and breath in it’s clear, worry free being to calm herself, eventually falling asleep while I guzzled on cookies dipped in ice cream and had bandages changed before milking resumed.
It was quite wonderful to be just Leila and I for 5 whole days before facing the world again. Four months later, my Swedish husband was offered a position that meant transferring to Stockholm. I was still in new baby fog, the world was in a state of confusion, everything felt unclear to me but a chance to go beyond the 2km radius? I’ll take it!
So, we put our newly renovated house (I hope the new owners took care of our baby birch tree) up for sale and made plans to move. People often assume the move must have been more stressful than usual but actually Covid made things easier in many ways. Selling the house went smoothly because buyers could only come and see the house if they were mortgage approved. We only had one viewing day with allocated time slots, one of those families put in an offer and our house went to sale agreed within a week. A moving company was allowed for as part of the job transfer and they gave the kids great entertainment after they hadn’t seen anyone in our home for months.
We had chosen an area in the suburbs of Stockholm beside two of my husband’s best friends to live in. Only a handful of houses came up for sale there every few months. Because we had three small children and the world was in a state of panic, we took a much more practical approach to buying a house, just needing somewhere to live as soon as possible. When we saw one online that was in a great location and had been recently refurbished, we asked one of our friends to check it out and we bought it online! The Swedish system for buying a house is unsurprisingly less complicated than the Irish one.
Organising a passport for Leila was less straight forward. As the passport office was near closed, we had had to call Simon Coveney to request that they prioritise our application. We weren’t just keen to take a 2 week vacation to Spain, we were moving country as a family. It came just a week before we were set to go. At least travelling through empty airports was easy, as was the plane journey itself with its 30 or 40 other passengers.
Having read different opinion pieces about how Sweden was handling the pandemic, I was in two minds. I wasn’t sold on how we were handling it through fear and bright yellow emergency signs. Littered throughout the airport for the 10 other people travelling that day were sings reading:
-Stay safe, protect each other.
Which isn’t so aggressive but what it was insinuating should we come together – risking the lives of loved ones – was fairly terrifying.
Having had this message drilled into me for a year, the thought of going to a society where we could mingle, both worried and excited me.
We arrived at the apartment we were renting as we were not granted access to our house for another 3 months and we started settling in. It was thrilling! Having three small children under 5 years old, I felt like I had been in a form of lockdown since our first was born. Walking to the same playgrounds, meeting the same people, holding the same routines day in, day out, in order to maintain some sort of control over the unpredictability of small child emotions.
Arriving to new adventures in Sollentuna, Stockholm
Suddenly there were new playgrounds, new places to stop by for a juice, new nature to explore. Not to mention that the schools in Sweden were open so I called the director of our local playschool every day until they let my socially starved 5 year old join, he was overjoyed walking in on the first day to meet his new pals.
A week after we arrived we were even invited to a party in our friend’s home. It would be outside and it would be just us and another family but we were delighted. Coming up to it, in attempting to grasp the concept of re-entering social normalities, I shared an outpouring of anxiety induced verbal ramblings with Philip,
“This is going to be so weird, isn’t this weird, and no masks, they don’t even wear them in the supermarkets here so they definitely won’t be wearing them at the party. Elsa has a bit of a runny nose and I have a tingle in my throat. Maybe we shouldn’t go, should we go? I mean we only landed a week ago, it would definitely be us that would give it to them, maybe we should stay at home for another few weeks.”
We did go, after a year of tracksuit bottoms, walks around the block, baking banana bread and gardening projects, I put on a new top and went to a party.
We arrived and 5 minutes in, everything felt completely as it should be. We hugged, we laughed, we shared food and drinks, it felt like we were welcomed back to life again. And what was the first thing we did after having an aperol spritz? We recorded a TikTok dance of course!