life, as I know it.

You know when your mind feels a little foggy? The feeling like you haven't slept, but you actually slept for 10 hours. The feeling like you're a little big hungover, but you didn't have a sip of alcohol the day before...

I have this feeling, like I can't get a clear thought, and I just can't seem to shake it. I suppose it's the emotional stress of leaving Stockholm for 12 weeks, going back to Toronto for the summer and seeing friends I haven't seen in a while. I suppose I'm just nervous about putting things on 'hold' here in Stockholm. I feel like I'll be missing things, significant moments with new found friends... but if I consider coming back early, I feel like I'll be missing out on the life I have in Toronto.

My friend and I were talking this morning, about keeping in touch with old high school friends, college friends and colleagues from years ago... he and I met in college and though we never really get the time to see each other, he always seems to be on the other end of the phone. He said something interesting to me, as I spoke about friends from Sweden possibly coming to visit, and possibly a friend from London and he said " Maybe it's just me and my OCD, but I don't like my world's mixing".. and it just kind of had me thinking, the idea of connecting the two gives your life abroad so much more 'realness' to it.

In the last 3 years of living across the pond I have had two visitors. One, my sister in law, and two my sister. Both were in different cities and only my sister really saw my life, in Stockholm. And though my sister and I are complete opposites, and she's no where as near as  'warm and kind' with people as I am (I mean she is but you'd have to know me to get it)... the point though is when she was here all of the sudden all the stories and people and places she has heard about became so completely true. She met my friends, my colleagues, saw me behind my bar, walked the streets of Stockholm, and though she can be a harsh judge of character, it put a lot of my life into perspective, it sort of flicked a switch in my head, making me want to push harder on an 'independent' life in Stockholm, because all I really have now is my industry and the many friends, great friends I have from it.

I guess the struggle stands like this, the more I continue to bring those two worlds together, the harder it seems to have them in different places. I think the one reason I survived two years in London and the last year(ish) in Stockholm, was very much the fact that Toronto has and always will be 6,000+km away from where I stand and what I choose to share about both sides of the story, Toronto to Stockholm, Stockholm to Toronto... the West Coast of Canada and London in between, they're all so separate, and when I mixed those together in London (my ex meeting a bit of the family I had and the family that came to visit) it became so impossible to ever separate them again. The one thing though about London, was I knew it was never a 'permanent' option, I wasn't in the best place career wise, and I knew my visa couldn't be renewed...

But here in Stockholm, it's so different, I see a life, long term (5 years or more) here. I see the city as a place I can really fit into, even though I lack the language and the 'stiffness' of Swedish culture. But something about having come here solo, staying single and being happy and okay with that, comfortable in that, makes me feel confident that it isn't about depending on someone to stay here, but knowing that I want to stay here for me and the possibilities of what Stockholm could do for my career.

If my European friends do come to visit me in Toronto this summer, I guess I will just have to understand that sometimes when your 'world's' mix great things can happen. And making your life feel more genuine isn't the worst thing.

It's just the older I get, the more my siblings get older, get married and plan to have families, I know it's going to be the hardest moments of my life missing moments to be with them, but at the same time, being there with them, when I can spend that time, it's going to mean so much.

The hardest things we face in life, sometimes we face them alone and sometimes we face them surrounded by the people we love so much.

At the end of the day, having two worlds collide gives everything in my life a little more meaning, and I feel good about that.





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