Hawaii here we come

After an idyllic family Christmas, Zoe and I are embarking on our longest plane journey ever (the one to China from California was not quite as long); we are off to a conference in Hawaii. It was a long-shot when I submitted a paper last summer but it got in and now I have to go present it. From Copenhagen, Hawaii is as far away as anything possible, 12 hours behind, meaning our chances of actually getting over jetlag before we have to return are slim. I am envisioning a lot of nights in our hotel room reading books and waiting for breakfast to open, but also beach trips and Zoe yawning through conference talks in the back with her iPad (that's how we do it these days when conferences don't have childcare). It is a once in a lifetime trip and if I wasn't so broke from plane tickets between Copenhagen and Stockholm (5983 DKK per month to be exact), I would splash out on some actual trips on the island. We will be on the Big Island at a Hilton resort and there will be friends of mine with kids and someone who have promised to look after Zoe when I present my paper. All in all a good deal I think. Zoe has been singing 'Hula hula' all December in anticipation and packed not just two, but three bathing suits along her swimming doll.

Back in Copenhagen life happened. A lot of it. I can't be specific but let me say 2017 will be interesting to say the least from my personal perspective. Happy new year!

Happy New Year, happy new year

I was carefully painting my nails dark burgundy, while sipping champagne and eating the traditional Danish new years dessert: Kransekage, a lovely small cake of baked marzipan, sometimes with chocolate inside, while remembering again that this was my first New Years Eve ever, without Zoe. I guess you could count the ones before she was born, but that was different. This was going to be the first one where I would not be able to say cheers and let her have a sip of champagne, laugh from her facial expression and her running around popping the crackers and generally be cheerful. Not that it would be a lonely evening, I was invited, with a friend, to a large dinner party where they would be plenty of people and children, because that is after-all the age we are all at now.

Zoe and me New Years eve 2013

But reflecting back on 2015 (thanks Facebook for providing me with memories from this day, particularly my status from 2 years ago: "Well, 2013 was even worse than 2012 and 2013 is ending on an all time low. Let's see if 2014 can get any worse." 2014 was not worse, but pretty low too), I realized that 2015 was in fact the best year for me in a long, long time, if not forever. Despite the occasional low, in 2015 I moved to New York and managed to focus much more of my attention on spending quality time with Zoe. Yes, I always spent a lot of time with Zoe, most of it fun, but it is hard to really enjoy when you are miserable (I still remember sitting on the floor behind the kitchen counter of my tiny kitchen in Stockholm crying silently, while she played in the living room, just so she wouldn't notice). Now I have three great jobs to come back to in New York, friends, colleagues, an apartment with a view of the Empire State Building and a life that I really love, all built up within one year. How can it not only get better in 2016? I believe in it, for both Zoe and me.

New Year resolutions

Many years ago I made a "new years resolution" that I was never going to make any promises for the new year because they were only just gonna be broken. I would try to live healthy for two weeks, then back to my usual regular chocolate and too-busy-for-the-gym lifestyle or I would promise to work harder, get up 6 am each morning to write a bit more on an article, only to do it for three days before I got back to snoozing until 7am (I do actually recall two enjoyable weeks where I did get up super early and went into our freezing kitchen our California apartment with a shawl and a cup of coffee to write on a particular paper). But I do better without telling myself that this year will be different, this year will be better because I know I do my best every single day. I do the best that I can do that very day and that might be different for different days, but I rather want to think that I'm good enough, just the way I am. Every day.

But I do wonder how I ended up in such a ridiculous situation as I'm in. I should be excited and happy, I am certainly better off than many others (why do people always say this btw? If I should be happy just because I have a permanent job when many others don't, if I should be happy just because I have a stable place to live when others don't, then when all comes down to it, nobody would be allowed to be unhappy or *strive towards more* unless they were close to starvation with no family or friends. I honestly hate people who tell me I should just be happy with what I got); but I'm terribly unhappy. My brother asked me yesterday if I had any New Years resolutions and I told him, as usual I don't. Instead I have wishes. Wishes for two big things that I hope and pray will come true this year. Two things that will make me happy and make up for all the things I have lost the past couple of years. And no, love is not one of my wishes. I'm nowhere near over my marriage and still wish that we could figure things out. I wish he hadn't given up on me after three months, but that's what I got. It seems to me that guys move on swiftly if there are any problems and never look back.

My New Year wishes will be expensive but I'm not giving up. In fact I have a large printed poster in my living room with those words: Don't give up. I'm bringing the poster to New York.

New Year realizations

Zoe was playing a pretend game where she was visiting with her doll. Her play is often now done in English, which she has finally realized that I speak and understand too. "I'm visiting you here in Copenhagen", Zoe said, and as the most natural thing in the world added: "we live in New York". I laughed and asked her if she knew how much longer we were going to stay here and she held up a full hand, "this many days". I corrected and told her we were going back to Stockholm in just three days, something she was excited to hear.

The conversation made me ponder (yet again) of the way Zoe is growing up with several homes, several cities and countries, several languages. She adapts easily and seem very much at home at my parent's place (which is the only continuous home she has known) but she also longs for being at home with me, which I like to see as her main home. I hope that I can provide for a secure childhood by being a stable person and make sure she has stable people in her life (in addition to her parents), like her uncles and my girlfriends, not to forget the obvious people like her grandparents and her family on her dad's side. But I have several friends who grew up in many different countries due to their parent's job relocations and their candid portrayals and sometimes psychological issues are not solely positive. The talk about issues of having no roots, of being the odd one out always, and not being able to have deep relationships. I sometimes wonder how I can do this to Zoe? I know that having a base, both culturally and geographically is core for a happy and secure childhood, at least the books say so. On the other hand, I don't socialize with anyone from my childhood apart from family; my best friend I met in high school. The only reason we are still friends today is that we (particularly her) were diligently writing letters to each other across the Atlantic for the three years I spent in college in Florida after graduation (yep, I'm that old, the internet was not readily available to us). But one thing is people, another thing is place. How much does place mean for growing up? How much does stable friends mean? Are friendships more valuable when they wane themselves as opposed to being interrupted through forced separation? Perhaps not in the overall picture but a disruption is never healthy for kids. I often recount Zoe's explanation of why things were okay when I was hating my job a couple of months ago: "But mom, I don't work, I go to daycare and I really like my daycare". It was that simple in her world. And it made me suck it up and realize that I might hate my job occasionally but Zoe's happiness is just as important to my happiness.

After playing visiting Zoe went back to her normal story telling and singing and dancing. I comforted myself with us going back on Tuesday after a very successful long long holiday at my parents house where we all got along brilliantly. Hopefully that will be a good memory for her too.

New Years festivities

As someone with a small child new years parties are usually out of the question for me. The past three years (that includes when I was pregnant) I have completely skipped any festivities, and have actually been in bed before midnight one year. This year, however, I was the luckiest parent: I had babysitters (my parents) and a party to go to. The latter part being even more lucky since I have not lived in Denmark for over ten years and although I have three close friends here who have been very forgiving of my exile, I would not expect them to be able to include me in their new year plans. But it turned out that one of my friends were actually hosting a party, one where I knew other attendees through past social get-togethers and colleagues (said friend is also an old colleague). I ended up having a smashing time and a bit too much champagne for being a fit mother the next day. All I managed was to take Zoe into the living room where we watched old disney cartoons for three hours while I 'rested' my head. But it was worth it, this party definitely made up for the past three years of non-partying.