Why I moved to Sweden

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When my husband is introducing me to acquaintances of his, he often explains that I am from France and that ‘she switched Paris for Grängesberg ‘. This does not say much to you, right, so let’s compare, shall we! Paris has – from January, 1st 2011 – 2,233,818 inhabitants; Sweden’s demographics is estimated to reach 9,088,728 in July 2011 and Grängesberg counted barely 3,532 inhabitants in 2005 (I cannot find more up to date figures). If we compare further, Grängesberg’s population represents approximately 0,16% of Paris’ and only 0,04% of Sweden’s. Why did I go ‘bury’ myself in such a place, do you ask? That is not the issue here… Love is what made me, but not only.

When I was eleven years of age, like most of young girls from that age, I was the ‘groupie’ of a rock band. I read everything I could about them, including the country they came from. I read about it and fell in love with it. What does the saying say? ‘The grass looks greener on the other side. ‘ I did not know how, but I felt that this was the case. My youth did not really help me understand the principles of my own country, nor did it make me want to know anything about it. I was already looking for an escape… or maybe, I was just a regular eleven year old girl in want of everything. ‘Whichever helps you sleep at night… ‘

Nevertheless, that idea of another country never left me. It became a latent dream and everything I did afterwards was gravitating around it – in a more or less direct way, might I add. People I met, I chose them because they reminded me of ‘another country’. I hanged around those who gave me the illusion that I was coming closer to my dream; now that I look at it from afar, they were just as lost as I was. I have no regrets though. I went through quite a bit of hardships and learnt through heartaches.

I have always been a shy girl and quite a naive one too; I used to give my trust to anybody and of course I got burnt countless of times. I used to be gullible and I still am at times – which gives my husband the joy of teasing me about it. Anyway, the people I did not trust then – not so many in the end – were the ones looking out for me, go figure. Did I ever learn? I obviously did, though to the extreme and not the way one would think. Indeed, I chose to hide and close my heart completely instead of paying better attention to other, learning their ways. I became scared even of my own shadow. People, most of all, frightened me to a point that I would get panic attacks when they were too numerous, or just stared at me. I still have trust issues nowadays, but I am rid of the fright and the panic; my discomfort around people is slowly disappearing.

Being shy – or mostly quiet – gives me some kind of shield and protects me from my own haste to ‘make friends’. Sometimes, I even think that it makes me pathetic to be so distrustful. And yet… I moved to Sweden almost in the blink of an eye to live with a man, whom everybody thought I did not know. How wrong they were! How little they thought of me! How little they knew me! Believe me when I say that nothing I decided then was rushed, or lightly taken. I knew him well alright, before we even met for real (see ‘How my life chose me’). I trusted him with all my heart and soul; and I never believed once that I would get hurt…

IMPORTANT NOTICE: don’t do that at home though youngsters! He and I were extremely lucky. It does not always turn out so good, so be careful out there. Be safe because my own truth is NOT universal.

I once asked the question: ‘Did you take the right path in life?’ because for a split second I thought that my life would have been different if I had not liked that rock band’s music; or if I had not encountered the challenges I met and then dealt with them the way I did… and so on. It happens to have these questions and it is somehow fun ones. We all ask ourselves once in a while ‘what if?’, which leads us nowhere of course.

Yes. The path I chose was/is a tricky one because it is not the easy one. What makes a life-path easy – and according to whom? Well, I let you be the judges of that. In my case, I left everything and began again from scratch. I followed love and my dream. I still have both and I have new dreams with an ever growing love… is my life easier? In my heart it is; which inevitably is the only thing I truly care about. The rest is just bonus.

Related articles

• Why Don’t More People Move To Sweden? / Scandinavian Cohousing Mention (cohousingblog.com)
• I love Sweden (mikotamper.wordpress.com)
• Live longer (move to Sweden) (stockholmchurch.wordpress.com)
• Malmo shalmo – Malmö, Sweden (travelpod.com)
• Daytrip to Sweden – Part II – Lund, Sweden (travelpod.com)
• Photo of the day: Beach in Sweden (gadling.com)

How my life chose me…

This is how it all started

I do not think I need going further back in time… Yes, December 2002 should do it. I had been back in my home country for two years, from my one year ‘exile’ in Ireland, living and working in Paris. For someone who had so little professional experience, I had gotten myself a good job as an administrative assistant. I was fine, thought I; nor did I challenge such an idea, for fear of discovering that I actually was miserable. Indeed, I had no idea who I was, but I was making a living. I had become what they expected of me: the nice, caring and normal woman who would fit anywhere in society. The one who would one day marry – if only she could keep a boyfriend – who would have children and would eventually live in a house near mom and dad.

Addicted to Internet as soon as I could afford to buy my own computer, I surfed… long… for hours at a time without any aim, thought I. Then I found them: the artists I so admired. One after the other, I visited their websites and left messages: cried for attention – unaware still that I was doing so. I cried so loud that someone finally heard me. Yes, he heard me and he responded.

We e-mailed each other and we learnt one another; we tried chatting, but he was such a slow ‘typer’ that it fast became hopeless; then he called me – from Sweden; that phone call lasted 10 minutes at the most, and we were very inarticulate; it is actually very laughable today, but it was really daunting back then. Anyway, we made it through. Weeks later, we began our everyday call-marathon. Our phone bills were extravagant but we did not care; we had never met, and yet, we were a couple. I know it sounds weird, but it is really how it was. The calls occurred around February 2003; we met for the first time – in real life, if you will – April, 16th 2003. I flew to Sweden. Before we knew it, I had left everything and moved to Sweden in July 2003.

I worked a lot to heal and he helped me make it happen by supporting and encouraging me every step of the way. I feel brilliant today… but it took years for me to finally be able to breathe and walk the way I was supposed to; that is with my head high and without hiding. In 2005, I self-published a collection of poems that I had begun writing when our relationship was starting… my writing again was, once more, his doing… He really saved my life!

We are now married and are ‘living happily ever after’… and yet, we often struggle. He works shifts in a factory to make sure that we have a good home, food on the table every day, and can afford something extra now and then. He said to me once that maybe he had missed the opportunity for his own dreams; and there was no way he would let that happen to me. He is amazing, I am telling you. I know he chose to put his dreams on hold for me…

For years, I did nothing but work on getting better – inside. Now that I am, I am doing my best to catch up… I am studying and looking for a job. I am sending CVs and letters, but so far, nothing. I learnt a brand new language, even though Swedes can speak really good English. I am learning more about a lot of things – mainly accounting and finances, to be able to create my own little company – all that in a language that is not my own. I am about to learn more Swedish, next term, to become even better and exploit my language abilities.

I am also writing… again… because I had stopped since 2007. Today, as I think about it, it feels like I was giving it up; but I know now that I was not because it would have been like I stopped breathing. I just needed a break from who I was and how I used to write – the ‘fake’ me had to go – and it enabled me to find my real voice. One of my biggest dreams is to make it as a writer; make a living out of it. I have no idea if others will think that I have what it takes, but this is who I am: a writer. What I do is another matter, another concept. My other dream is that my husband finally figures out what his dreams really are, so that when it is time, he can go for them without restraint.

Life can be a ‘bitch’ if you let it… but one can learn so much from it. Nobody said it was supposed to be easy – Life, I mean. I do believe that one gets what one needs from Life in order to become the best of who one can be. These are just my words, and I know, it is easier said than done… fair enough, just do not give up.

Fate…

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As I was thinking of an article I have published elsewhere, I ended up being stuck with a French song from musical “Notre-Dame de Paris” written by Luc Plammandon. It goes like this and I quote:

“Fate – Mistress of our destinies
Fate – When you cross our path
Fate – Prince or pauper
Fate – Queen of prostitute
Fate – You hold our lives in your hand.”

I used to say: ‘Everything happens for a reason‘ but I lately realised how dull that sounded. Life is more complicated than that. Seriously, what does it mean after all that ‘everything happens for a reason‘ beyond the obvious cliché?

As the song says “Fate – Mistress of our destinies”, which should mean that whatever we do, no matter the decisions we make, none of it actually belong to us. Now that is a ‘crappy’ concept because I have always been led to believe in freewill. Does freewill exist then? The song goes on saying that no matter who we are, fate will find us and be done with us. Fate has a very negative connotation I find, don’t you think? Yet, I am not sure it is that accurate, or is it…

If the witch of xxxHolic (manga/anime) explains that as soon as we meet someone, we are linked forever to that person – even if we do not meet ever again; then if she says that there are no coincidences (like other characters in other fictional stories)… it is easy not to challenge it because it is a fiction. In need to ask, however, from where do such ideas come to the mind of the artist then? I mean, in all stories we tell, are pieces of truth – or if not truth, folklore and/or superstitions. Back to my witch… she talks about them as real and, ‘hell’, why should superstitions not be real? Is it because they are superstitions? Is it because they are far-fetched?

Fate is pretty far-fetched too… when you do something, it will impact your life whether you know of it or not; it will also mean a consequence for the world on a more or less big scale. That is what fate is and that is a pretty big pill to swallow. Now, whether one chooses to believe in fate or not, if it exists… it does not make it less ‘real’; if it does not exist… well, no change. What is true? What is not? Does it really matter?

One could actually think that way: just in case, better act the best way I can so I do not make things worse for me or others. Beyond that, there is no way of knowing if we do influence the world as fate would have us do. It is impossible to know if a good action will backfire because as soon as we interact with one another, we influence each other. As soon as we do something we provoke a reaction… anticipated or no.

But fate does know – let me push the issue once more – and therefore free will does not exist because everything is written. Well, this is TOO depressing! Does fate exist or not? It is not my problem! I declare that I am my own fate, that I care for others the best I can and as often as they need me to. I am not perfect and make plenty of mistakes…  but I do my best to learn from them. How do I influence the world around me? Hopefully in a good way… if not, I hope I did not do too much damage.

Fate… stop messing with my head!

From Friendship to War

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Why does betrayal affect one so much? This might be an easy-to-answer question, but as I am currently experiencing such a situation, I needed to go beyond my own feelings and start messing with my own mind. Internal argumentation with me and myself proves to be quite effective to make me feel less cranky.

Friendship…

Friends are my family and choosing them is not a conscious process but a heartfelt one. My friends have all my trust and I’d do anything I can to help them become the most of whom they can be, if they need me to do so. A friend, however, who misuses my trust… I will not be forgiving. For a very long time, I used to be trusting at once because I did not believe I would be likely to meet a “bad” person in the environment I was in. I did not indeed… I still met some pretty unkind people though, and also I made friends for life. I have sharpened my judgement in time and became less gullible than I used to be, until I stopped keeping my guard up.

Since I was not getting burnt anymore, I let myself believe once more that everybody was good and trustworthy. I thought I could see how grand a friendship between two persons was, and how much for granted they were taking it. I did not see the entire picture though… I had not counted with deceit because I was too much in a hurry to think that person as a friend. BIG MISTAKE!

Shattered friendship…

Deceit and betrayal are often the reasons of such crushing feelings… or are they? I mean, I could almost taste the bitterness of my disappointment when it happened, but disappointment in whom? I cannot control what a friend is experiencing; how he/she is leading his/her life; or how life may change him/her. In other words, the friend in question cannot be the object of my disappointment. I cannot do anything about who that person is, but I could have been more careful in the beginning… I could have judged better who I was dealing with… I could have, but I did not. Therefore, I am disappointed in myself because I should have known better, right? Or maybe, I am really disappointed in that person, I used to call friend, because he/she made such a mess of his/her life that lead to the inevitable betrayal.

He/she chose to shatter everything we had: relationship, dreams, hopes… for a petty self-satisfaction. How human! Yes, this is what we, humans, do best. Sad.

Pettiness to war…

After a low blow like that, it is hard to stand up… or should I say: stand straight. That hurts like hell but one does not wish to show the pain, one often chooses to show the anger that comes with such a wound instead. One does not wish to get as low though, because that’d be too easy and too much far from who one really is.

One needs to stand up and show that nothing of it is okay; one needs to make a statement; even a “war” might occur, just to make things right for us. Enough of being too kind and giving the other cheek, after all… but in the end, everybody will be a winner. The ex-friend will have been scolded and ,with a little luck ,will have realised his/her mistake, and therefore he/she willl continue on a better path for him- herself (this might of course be just a wishful thinking on my part); the wronged friends will get the satisfaction of retaliating and standing up for themselves.

Still… all in all, what a waste!

Fatalism or optimism?

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Does everything happen for a reason?

This may be a cliché quote but there is a whole philosophy of fatalism behind it. This sounds bad, granted, but it does not make it so. Fatalism has a lot to do with the belief that, somehow, everything that happens to us is planned in advance. Everything has a meaning even if we, at the particular moment it happens – aware of it or no – do not see the big picture that is intended.
Everything is a sign; everything has a meaning at a particular point in time; everything is planned for us without us having a say in it. That is a horrible concept/philosophy, especially when life gets so hard that all hidden meaning lose their purpose since they have long become unreachable.

For argument sake, let’s stick to our “little” lives and get blind to all others for just a minute; how many things happened that you did not like and yet, you love where you are today? I know I have had a list stored in the back of my brain for some time now. Okay… the minute’s gone!

Let’s take a look at the world and the bigger picture I mentioned earlier. I read an article the other day that made me think for the rest of it. It was in a British newspaper and it talked about a bird-species that was about to become extinct in Africa. For what I remember, Africa had not yet been touched by any bird-species’ extinction: big deal, you should say. The writer looked then at the bigger picture. All the species that disappeared since mankind. Spooky, right!
Anyway, he was also talking about all the people involved to protect the Liben lark (name of the bird). Suddenly he pondered and wondered, or maybe he stated his belief that, mankind was on Earth to utterly destroy it, so how come some of us cared so much to protect it? What difference did it make? Was there a reason for all this?

Fatalism can really be a mood dampener. I wrote a free verse poem in 2005 called “Watch the signs” where I say to be on the look out because the next step is facing us and we often miss it – or is it always that we do. I do not know how right or wrong I was, but I learnt not to see signs everywhere, nor look for them in everything. I learnt with experience that fatalism can be the key to disaster in most cases; it can also kill hope in weak hearts… it almost destroyed MY freewill – which is (could be) an illusion for the fatalist.

In the end, I am a little bit of a fatalist with a big dose of optimism. What about you?