If only I could fit Sweden in my Luggages

As much as I am aware that my time in Sweden is temporary, that the day when I leave the country is just a matter of time, it doesn’t make it easier for me to deal with it when the time eventually comes.

My heart still aches

But I only have myself to blame.

Wherever I live, I tend to create a Horcrux, something that stores a piece of my soul, even if I didn’t possess and certainly didn’t perform any kind of magic like He Who Must Not Be Named.

I did that to Australia, 9 years ago, and I did that too to Sweden in the last 5 years. This country has become my new Horcrux.

Part of the reasons why I do that is my upbringing and my nature to always seize the day, to enjoy every moment and make the most of it no matter where I go or live.

Instead of just being the so called PhD partner, I insisted to do my own things too. I embraced the every day life in Sweden. I picked up the local habits. I learnt the language. I made friends. I worked, both voluntarily and professionally. I even took freestanding courses in the subject I’ve been passionated about.

Some people found this absurd, if I didn’t have any intention to stay in Sweden for good.

I would be lying if I said that the thought had never crossed my mind. At some points I would love to stay in Sweden longer, particularly because this country is really a good place to raise children. But even so, I never thought of staying here for the rest of my life. I’m not a planner, and to think of something as “forever” is just not my style. It doesn’t fit me.

But the choice to live the life in Sweden wholeheartedly certainly has an impact. I have let Sweden grow in me, more than I planned to. I attach to this place more than I should. So when I have to leave now, it feels like I’m leaving a part of me behind.

I know this is just me being melancholic as usual, but after almost five years calling myself a Lundensian, I think I have the right to feel a little bit of melancholic.

Five years is not a short time after all

But I don’t want to repeat the same mistake. I want to be real this time.

When I left Australia, I promised myself to come back. I haven’t been able to keep that promise up until now, so I wouldn’t do the same to Sweden. I don’t want to fool myself. I don’t want to have such a high expectation just to be disappointed at the end.

I don’t know if I would come back to Sweden.

Maybe yes.

Maybe no.

Maybe soon.

Maybe never.

The only thing I know is that it doesn’t matter anymore.

Coming back or not, I’m going to cherish every single memory I made here: those walks through Lund’s cobblestoned streets, the smell of Kanelbulle whenever I went to a café and say: “Hej, jag skulle ha en kaffee och en kanelbulle, tack”, those back and forth visits to the hospital to give birth to my second born, those interviews with the Swedish newspapers, that night when I saw Aurora in Abisko, even that mundane announcement in Pågatåg: “Nästa station, Lund Central. Nästa, Lund Central.”

Every.

Single.

Thing.

And that was why I really prepped myself for the D-day.

Prior to my departure, I revisited my favorite spots in Lund. I created a new playlist on Spotify, full with my favorite Swedish songs. I breathed in every thing I would miss about Sweden and about Lund particularly. I was busy meeting all my friends here to thank them for the friendship and for making Lund a home far away from home.

So when the suitcases were packed, and the new journey was in sight, I thought I would be ready.

Apparently I was and still am not, and probably will never be, but it is what it is. And I’m okay with that.

Thank you, Sweden. Thank you for teaching me to appreciate personal space. Thank you for your idea of fika break, of balancing personal and professional lives, for introducing the notion of lagom, “not too much not too little.”

I still don’t like your idea of snow and cold air in April, or that darkness in November, I don’t think I would ever get used to that even if I stayed longer.

Thank you for restoring my belief in opportunity and change, in equality and the so-called better world. These are some of the things I would forever owe you.

My eyes misted over with tears when I wrote this, so let me just conclude this note by quoting one of my favorite authors, Jhumpa Lahiri:

I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only (wo)man to seek his (her) fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.

Tack och hej då, Sverige. Hoppas det är alltid bra med dig.

Till the day we meet again,

Hayu Hamemayu