Where it all began
First published in the Irish Times 2022
On the island of Ios while fulfilling my parents greatest wishes for their 19 year old daughter (working as a Gogo dancer in a bar managed by a 50 year old man in speedos named Tommy the Tiger) I met my future. Philip, a Swedish bar tender, it was love at first cosmopolitan.
When I announced that my bar tending, ripped jeans wearing, summer fling would be visiting, my parents promptly made up a bedroom for him, in our garage (in fairness it was well insulated and recently painted).
We embarked on a long distance relationship, until we met on neutral territory and spent 10 years chasing dreams, loosing and finding ourselves, working so hard to reach the summit of London and when we got there? When we could finally afford to rent an apartment with a spare bedroom!!! We yearned for something more, something lasting.
When I married Philip, I did it with one strong, clear message, I will not be moving to Sweden; we settled in Booterstown, Co Dublin. Fast forward 6 years and where do I find myself? In the suburbs of Stockholm with our 3 kids, in a wooden clapboard house, plum trees in the garden and polite, reserved neighbours that leave baskets of fruit at the door but don’t come in for a cup of tea.
When Philip was offered a position in Sweden, I was dubious. While I loved to travel, I feared change but the pandemic had somewhat thwarted my theatre career so I got on board and focused on the benefits. The children would learn Swedish, familiarise themselves with the culture and Philip could connect with home.
We contacted friends with small kids and copied their lives. We couldn’t fly over so we bought a house online right down the road from our two close friends and their families, enrolled our kids in the same daycare and fired question after question at them until a year and a half later it feels like we have some sort of a grip on things.
We had no idea how challenging the process would be, getting set up in a new system, a system that follows rules and no amount of chancing your arm will get you anywhere. A system in which you don’t exist until you receive a personal number and digital ID without which you can’t use any of the apps. Society functions on apps, schools, doctor appointments, booking restaurants, funfair queues, everything has an app. It’s like living in the future, a cashless society built on apps, I couldn’t tell you what Swedish money looks like. All life information via email, letter or app was now in a language that I had basic knowledge of and going to buy alcohol in state owned stores was mind blowing; it’s like entering a museum where you expect to be handed an audio tour and information booklet.
I am so proud of our children for how they adapted (well Leila was not even one yet so perhaps not so impressive) but our six year old, Oscar, joined a new daycare, copying the kids in their games to make friends. It was trickier for 4 year old Elsa who was keen to communicate verbally but she managed and now speaks better Swedish than some of her classmates.
Living abroad, immersing myself in another culture, connecting with people who have humbled me and showed me so much about what it means to live, has been a gift but I long for home and the closeness of family. The claustrophobic communities I needed to escape in my early 20s now as a mother seem so comforting and I crave the cold Irish sea.
Swedish winters are long. There are days that feel as if the sun has only hovered above the horizon before setting but there are also pink sky mornings when the sun sparkles on glittering snow and you feel encapsulated in a magical snow globe world.
The change in the seasons is almost tangible. People emerge in spring to start preparing. Laborious gardening is rewarded as plants burst open with colour in early summer. My morning walk to school is a joy to see the care and understanding our neighbours put into their gardens to help nature along in its change.
The long summer days come back and it’s a thing to behold. Midsummer celebrations gather communities in song and dance while drinking an obscene amount of alcohol and eating a variety of pickled fish.
I have realised that change is nothing to fear, nature needs the change of the seasons in order to bloom again and so do we.
I won’t judge whatever comes next, I will welcome change with gratitude like a friend because it has been my greatest teacher so far.