I left New York on a Sunday evening. Sitting at JFK airport, around families and business men on their way to Scandinavia, I felt very calm. Ready to take on a new life, a new day in Stockholm. I never would’ve thought in a million years that leaving the city which I’ve dreamt about since I saw my first Sex And The City episode on my cousin’s couch as a 12 year old, would be this easy. Am I saving up on tears for an extreme melt down as soon as the plane touch down on Swedish soil? I didn’t know. I sent a last text to my roommates, my friends, my lover, popped a sleeping pill and boarded.
After a month at home; living with my parents, starting a new job, buying my first ever apartment, catching up with all my friends, I still feel that satisfaction. Except for a small cry on my first day home (still not sure if it was “leaving New York-tears” or “wi-fi in my parents apartment doesn’t work-tears”), I haven’t grieved. Do you have to? I sometimes question my own emotions when people ask me how it feels to be home. Do you miss it? What do you think about Stockholm now? I honestly don’t even think about it. Living in New York, being there - it’s as if it happened in a different lifetime. In a parallel universe.
Stockholm is cold. It’s only September, but it’s cold. I wore a merino turtleneck and a trenchcoat to work yesterday (I also wore pants, but you got it). IN SEPTEMBER. As my instagram feed fills up of New Yorkers still sipping on Aperols at various roof tops and planning their Labor Day-weekend beach outfits, I considered a cup of Christmas tea last night. Went for chamomile in the end, but still. I considered it. It’s weird how different life is, depending on where you are geographically. My food habits changes, my style changes, my mood changes. Not for the better nor for the worse, it just changes. I have my New York-self and my Stockholm-self. Do you believe in that? That your location changes you? Not your fundamental state obviously, but those smaller things like what you wear and how you react to different subjects being brought up in conversations. I do.
It’s very very nice to be home. Safe and calm. I haven’t written anything at all since leaving the US. I just haven’t had time. But as I get my shit together and start to find the words again, you can listen to my podcast that I have with my best friend Linn. And in two weeks, you can read my magazine that I have with my friends Frida-My and Linnea. There’s a lot going on. And I feel calm.