Closing in

I have been ignoring it for two months but now it is getting real. In two days, Zoe will be picked up by her dad, go on vacation with him, the girlfriend and some of his friends. Then we are all going to a conference before they fly back with Zoe for her to spend the rest of the school year in Stockholm. I will not be able to see her for two months, since I can't go back before the end of June when my holiday starts. Well, in theory I could go back, but then I would not be able to return (visa issues) and I would not be able to work and have a salary for the summer. Not unlike last year where I had my first two months ever without Zoe. They were some of the hardest days I have ever had, but we survived.

This evening, as Zoe was happily playing with some of all her birthday presents from Saturday, I started thinking of the reoccurring theme: How will this lifestyle of living in two different countries, of having to switch context often, of having two sets of friends, yet being far away from extended family, how will this affect Zoe? How will she deal with it later on when her opinion will matter more? Will she be able to understand why we live in two different countries? Will she like one country above another? I occasionally mention things about moving, both because my future is uncertain, but also just because I'm subletting and can't stay here forever. Today I said something about next time I find an apartment and she flinched, looking up at me. "No mommy, no mommy, I want you to be here." She wants to stay exactly here in our tiny apartment, going to her wonderful local public school with her wonderful friends, taking acting and dance classes a few blocks from here. I realized that she likes stability, because in her life she has seen very little of that. Today on our way home from acting class, we counted just how many apartments she has lived in. Eight different apartments, four different cities, three different countries. And she is turning six.

Later we sat in the bed with pajamas and duvets, watching Muppet Show, the one with Debbie Harry, Zoe's favorite. We both sang along to all the songs and laughed at the grumpy men while outside the window, the Empire State Building shone its signature color. I wrapped my arm around her and hugged her extra tight, knowing it was the second last night in a while. But right now, I was able to just enjoy the moment, just the way things are and life just didn't get much better than that.

Walk of shame

The walk of shame when you are in your thirties is walking through your local neighborhood, past the daycare, using your child's stroller to move the last boxes and suitcases from the family home to your own little 400 square feet apartment. Divorce is never pretty. 

New York in Stockholm

For roughly 20 years my big dream has been to live in New York City. And from about 10 years ago when I started frequenting NYC for a week or so regularly, this dream has turned into a major goal of mine. New York is, apart from Copenhagen, the city where I feel instantly at home with its busyness, diversity and cheer coolness. It is the ultimate living space for me. Yet, I never managed to relocate there. Instead my choice of career and field have dictated other temporary homes and my personal life has lead me to places I never thought I was going to live, Stockholm being the most odd one of them. I am now living in a Scandinavian capital, clean and airy, friendly, yet reserved. It is a small capital (a bit smaller than my native Copenhagen) but at least is it one and the public transportation beats any city I have ever been to. Still, this was not a city I would ever have chosen myself. Ever. And I am now living here, not because I chose it but because I have to. I could certainly get a job somewhere else (I have recently had several serious suggestions) but my daughter and her dad is here.

On the surface this seems to potentially lead in one of two directions: I could either become a bitter, angry and generally grumpy person who hates everyone here because here is not where I want to be, or I could "suck it up" and learn to live with my situation for better or worse. But neither of these options really feel right. I must admit that I occasionally am on the verge of being slightly bitter but the better part of me refuses to even entertain that thought. But I am in no way a person who would ever "suck it up" either; I sometimes stay quiet in situations where I don't want to get into trouble but in my personal life and career, I am not known for just letting be. If anything, I do too much and tell everything about my detailed problems at that moment, just to make a slight change and get out of my problems of my own.

Instead, I realized, I am trying to create my own New York in Stockholm. I live in the most urban area with tons of cafes merely a few blocks away. I have American friends that I work with in these cafes and I speak mostly English throughout the day, even with my Swedish friends. I live on 33 square meters with my 2 year old daughter. We eat bagels. I go out for dinner despite not being able to afford it and buy no clothes for myself for 3 months to make up for it. I enjoy the fast pace of the Swedes and listen to loud electronica in my earphones when I take the subway. I travel as much as I can to get out of here which of course is a bit of a contradiction but it gives me momentum to continue staying. I still believe that one day my dream will come true, one day I will have a small apartment on Manhattan and live my life there. But until then I just try to create my now little NY here where I am stuck until further notice.

Where are we going?

One morning a couple of weeks ago, Zoe woke up and decided to pack. She took our little car suitcase (that she think is her own, despite me sometimes traveling with it myself) and started pulling her clothes down from the shelf, putting it inside. When she thought she had enough she zipped it up and pulled it through the living room into the hallway. There she put on her sandals and took down the keys from the hook, which she can reach herself. She then asked me to take her jacket and sun hat down, which I did and she put both on by herself. Then she 'unlocked' the front door with the keys (it was already unlocked), opened the door and said 'bye bye mommy', while pulling the suitcase out to the stairwell. At this point I had to stop her because fact was that we were not going anywhere that day, and I was seriously worried she was going to try to pull the suitcase down the stairs. But she cried as I explained that we were not going flying or even by train, this was a regular daycare day. It took me a few minutes to make this clear but finally she calmed down and we continued our regular morning routine.

Zoe leaving again

Although this might seem like a fun morning game, I felt guilty and sad because I knew exactly why she was leaving and why she thought this was just one of our routine travels: a week before this, I had moved out from our family home, into a small apartment close by, without Mark. I had taken Zoe with me but she would also go back and stay with Mark for a few days in a row. This might come as a surprise and I have not been very open about our difficult situation, not here, not to anyone in real life apart from my closest friends. But fact is that we have had serious relationship problems since we moved to Sweden, problems that got worse over the winter and culminated in April. It took me a long time to talk to Mark about how unhappy I have been with my situation and how much I felt he was not considering this or even realizing this, but it only took me a couple of weeks from then, till I decided to move out. I felt this was the only way I could gain back the independence that I had given up and missed sorely after we moved to Sweden. It was never my choice to move here in the first place and my work situation was horrible, but at the same time I didn't feel that Mark took this serious. My lack of integration and engagement with swedish people and the language is clear evidence of this. In some ways I didn't feel this place was real.

Moving a 2 year old for the 4th time in her life feels tough but splitting up her parents feels terrible. The guilt sucks me in every time Zoe wants something and I give in very quickly. She mainly sleeps in my double bed where I stroke her hair until she falls asleep instead of putting her in her travel crib and let her fall asleep on her own, which she used to do. I let her decide if we should eat inside at the table or outside on the balcony, even if that means moving mid-meal. But apart from her thinking we travel and move every week, she seems to deal with it well. She has not had any temper tantrums out of the ordinary and she does not cry and ask for me (or her daddy) at night. And Mark and I are amicable and settled on doing this in a way that she is the least affected by. We have two rules: One rule is that we make sure to do something all three of us one day a week. Today for example, I came over with breakfast and we went for a long walk through the city, after which we went for early dinner at a nice italian place. We went back and I gave Zoe a bath before Mark put her to bed. Rule number two is that we are working towards staying together, not splitting up. I might have needed to be by myself for a while, be independent and have my own life, but neither of us really wants out. We are planning a date next week and I hope that will lead to more couple stuff and eventually me moving back in. I try to stay optimistic. But right now, Zoe is of the belief that we move every 4-6 months because that is all she knows.

It's here! (after 5 months)

Our furniture and things that we shipped from California are finally here. The moving men dropped it all off yesterday afternoon while I was teaching and Zoe was at daycare. We had been told that they would assemble all furniture, unpack everything and put things back where they were supposed to be. This of course seems like a great idea for people who move from one apartment to another of exactly similar size and number of rooms. However, we have moved from a 1400 sqr feet, 2 story, 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath condo to a 700 sqr feet, 2 bedroom small city apartment. In theory we have the same number of rooms but in reality we have about a 10th of the storage space and then of course only one bathroom (all older apartments in Sweden come with only one). It would obviously be a challenge to fit our things but we had cleaned out well already in California, so we were optimistic. Nothing had prepared me, however, for the state the movers left the apartment in. They did unpack some of the things. But since they didn't have anywhere to put them (for some unknown reason the first box they had unpacked was full of books, which was rather frustrating), Mark had instructed them to leave most of the boxes as they were. They then assembled the furniture. And left. Except for our double bed, none of the furniture was placed on the spot Mark and I had agreed on. This is the living room and kitchen.

Living room part

Living room towards kitchen

Today Mark worked all day unpacking and putting books in storage. My contribution when I got home from work was to sort out the kitchen cabinet. I am happy to see my old cups, have proper dinner plates and being able to make a pot of tea. It even looks neat. We have so little kitchen cabinet space here that I have a whole box of things to store in the basement, plus a box to give to Stockholms Stadsmission (a local charity). Tomorrow I'm going to start looking through Zoe's clothes, many of them that will now be too small. 5 months is a long time for a growing toddler.

Making a home (out of very few things)

Last Friday we moved all our things from our temporary apartment to our new apartment in two taxis, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I tried to make it comfortable in our new home with what we have. Then, at 5pm, Mark arrived with Zoe after picking her up from daycare. I was surprisingly nervous of how Zoe would react, what she would do when she saw the new place and if she would feel at home, which is why I started by making a comfy play corner for her. Not before her toys and stuffed animals were out, did I open the boxes with glasses, silverware and the pot (yep, we have a pot). She was happy to see me and we had an easy dinner but after that I had to unpack her little travel bed. I took her into her new room and proceeded to open it up, explaining that this room was where she would sleep and play. Her little face turned to utter disappointment, and then she started crying. It was like the scene from Planet of the Apes where the main character realizes, after seeing the broken Statue of Liberty, that this is earth. Zoe realized we were staying here. We weren't going home. She cried her brave tears and ran out of the room, over to the front door pointing up: "da, da." I felt my heart sink as I explained that we were living here now. This was home. She calmed down and I let her sleep in our bed the whole night.

Since then she has cheered up, exploring different parts of the apartment but she is still particular about things sometimes. Today she only wanted to sit on my lap to eat (with my heirloom silver fork) and she is not so happy with her play corner. She does love the new trash bin though, which she has learned to open and close by herself.

Moving Challenges

This week I am in a frenzy of trying to make our new apartment into a home or at least a place where we can live in from this Friday on. Our temporary lease is up and our new apartment is ours. Mark picked up the keys on the 22nd when Zoe and I were in Copenhagen and yesterday, after we had flown back the evening before, we entered our new home together. Our situation presents several challenges since we are not getting our half container of furniture and stuff (read: books and kitchenware) before the end of January. This means that that we will be living rather minimalistic, sleeping on an air mattress, sitting on pillows on the floor and eating off a borrowed table (thanks Jacob!). Today I went to Ikea to get some minimal level of kitchen utensils. I felt really silly buying things that I already have in a container somewhere on the Atlantic ocean. But I am not doing badly because when in Copenhagen I dug through my old stuff and found my inherited silverware which I brought back with me (yes, I have real heirloom silverware, forks, knives, a teapot and for some odd reason a million teaspoons. My grandparents must have had many people over for tea all the time).

 I also brought my old European sized Vipp bin that my brother had borrowed for half a decade. So for the next month we will drink espresso from my new posh espresso maker (my lovely husband's Christmas present to me), eat with real silver and enjoy throwing trash in a posh trash can. All while sitting on plastic chairs, eating one-pot meals like risotto and stews by candle light.

The cup holder problem

Moving to another country, let alone another country across the vast Atlantic is not a simple task to undertake. We have been lucky to have the majority of the related expenses paid, including having a set of moving people come and disassemble our furniture, pack everything up in your apartment, load it into a container and send it off, through the Panama Canal. We hope that on the other end, another set of moving people will carry the stuff up to the new apartment, open up the crates and put the furniture back together again. On the surface this seems like a great service and I was happy to have it for the first time of my life, after having moved 15+ times, always packing my own boxes. However, I quickly realized that it was not just the packing of boxes that was important but the judgement of what needed to be boxed and moved, vs. the stuff that needed to be sold or tossed. See, moving a $20 Ikea lamp from the US to Europe makes absolutely no sense because not only would the lamp not work with European bulbs (which are apparently 0.4 cm wider than the US bulbs) or European current, but the cost of moving it would also exceed the cost of buying a new one in a European Ikea. Combined with the fact that I never really liked this lamp and that it was bought merely as a 'transition' lamp (like so many other household items...) meant that it was not to be packed. Multiply that with 50 because we also had kitchen appliances that would not work in Europe, even with a transformer, include pre-pregnancy clothes that I really thought I would fit into by now but which I really should just part with, and you have at least 4 days work. Add to that a nosy little toddler who likes to take out all items I put in a box and who specialize in taking items and putting them somewhere strange (what is your little shoe doing in the cupboard? No, mommy's book does not go in the bathroom drawer), and you have about 8 evenings worth of hard work.

I approached the task with rigor, writing lists, sorting things out beginning one month prior to our big move. For two weeks this was all I could talk about, frequently asking Mark what he thought: Should I bring both of Zoe's duvets or just the small one? Should we keep the big lamp that I loved, but which would need rewiring in Europe? Would it make sense to ship the $1 wine glasses that we never used? He eventually got really annoyed and we snapped at each other, he accusing me of worrying too much and me accusing him of not helping out with the decisions. Instead he kept talking about more abstract things such as the fact that we still hadn't heard from the estate agent in London in terms of where we could pick up keys to our flat, things we couldn't do much about other than try to call them during opening hours (which was never when he expressed his concern). Eventually we found a middle way, me managing most of the household stuff, putting lamps on craigslist, him endlessly surfing the internet for estate agent news and, to his credit, showing and finally selling the car.

Almost everything was ready a few days before the movers arrived, now I just needed pack and decide what things we could not live without for 2 months. It was tough, but I managed to squeeze everything for Zoe and me (Mark took care of his own stuff) into a large suitcase weighing 71 pounds. This was clothes (including light winter clothes, we won't see our boxes before November the earliest), two of Zoe's favorite teddybears, important papers such as immunization records, an inflatable tub for Zoe, two books for me and her cup and bowl. We were also bringing her small collapsable stroller in a separate cover so we could check it in.

For some reason those last days of packing melted into one another with us trying to make the most of it, seeing people for goodbye dinners, goodbye brunches and goodbye drinks. The Friday before the movers were coming Saturday morning was the most difficult day because Zoe had to say goodbye to her lovely nanny, something I still cannot even write about without getting tears in my eyes, and something that is worth a whole other post. I was in a blur, trying to finish some work, managing a new study (yeah, I had just started a new study 2 weeks before we moved, how smart was that?) and on top of that we sold our car, so I had to look after Zoe while cooking for the dinner party we held for our nanny that very evening. When our guests finally left just before midnight I realized that I still had to label everything that the movers were not to take, such as still unsold lamps, suitcases and furniture we were getting rid of. Mark went to bed and left me to it; around 2 am I tumbled into bed, my head still spinning, hoping for the best.

Zoe and the all-important cupholder

The moving men were nice and seemed a lot more professional and meticulous than I had expected. They asked for each item that was not clear, I explained that no electric appliances were to be taken, except of course for the ones that were actually going (our large nice lamp, which we would be rewiring) and they went about their packing tasks. Meanwhile I realized that it was not entirely safe to have a toddler running around, picking up their power drills (NO ZOE, those screws are not for eating!) and generally being in the way of big men with big boxes. Mark took her out in the stroller, leaving me to guide the movers and relax a bit.

Flash forward to the evening where Mark had handed over the car to its new owners and finally, the movers had emptied the apartment and left us with the bare minimum to live with for the remaining two days. We went out to goodbye dinner with a couple of friends and were having a relaxing conversation when I suddenly realized, getting a chill down my back, that when I had put Zoe in the stroller so Mark could take her out that morning, I had taken off the cup holder because I knew he hated it (it was apparently in the way of his hand), and put it in the coat closet. The coat closet where the movers had packed everything from, including cup holder. How could I be taking Zoe for walks around London without a cup holder? How could I get my caffeine fix now? I interrupted everyone with my serious realization to the laugh of particularly Mark who did not share my distraughtness. After a bit of grumpiness from my side, he looked at me and said: If that is the worst thing that went wrong today, then we are pretty well off aren't we. And I agreed. We dubbed these small problems that we deal with 'cup holder problems', which reminds us everyday that we are so lucky to have what we have in terms of each other and Zoe, and wonderful people around us. And now I am off to spend £15 on a new cup holder because I really miss it here in London.