Do you believe in magic?

It finally arrived. My personnummer is the key to everything for my moving forward with my life in Sweden. It holds no magical capabilities, however it is the master key to open all of my doors of hope.

I can now enroll in SFI ( Swedish For Immigrants) so that I will be given the opportunity to learn the Swedish language. This is a free program provided by the government, and funded by taxes to teach all non Swedish speaking immigrants the basics and fundamentals of Swedish. How cool is that? I have even heard that if you complete the course within a certain time frame (I think one year) and have a passing grade the government will pay you around 12000kr (roughly $1500) as motivation for you to learn the language quicker. I will find out more of the details tomorrow after I go register. I am very excited to get moving with this whole thing. I have spent nearly two months doing nothing so just being able to have something structured to do for four hours a day is exciting. Also, I really want to get a job. I oddly enough miss working terribly, and without knowing much Swedish the jobs are harder to come by. 

The personnummer is also necessary to work in Sweden. Now that I have one I am allowed to work. I wish that it was that simple though. The job market is pretty tight here, and as I already said knowing at least conversational Swedish is required for a majority of jobs. There are plenty of jobs I have found where the working language is English, but Swedish is still necessary. I am going to go and register at Arbetsförmedlingen (the Swedish labor office) also. This is where everyone goes for unemployment benefits and help finding a job. I am not eligible for benefits, however I will take all the help I can get with finding a job.

Along with those two big things my personnummer allows me, it also allows a host of other benefits. I can now get an id kort (id card), and I can open a bank account. I can now be a real person! This one little number will allow me to do everything. It has been a long and tedious wait for it to show up. It almost seems to have these magical powers, and maybe it actually does because it gives hope and possibilities. Both of those things are a little magical aren't they?

Now the real work begins. Vacation is over, and it is time to achieve or at least try to achieve all of the things we set out to with this move. We came to Sweden with the goal of having a better family life, and so far we have been doing that. I want to put these final pieces in to place, and get on with the business of LIVING! 

Long time no write

It is amazing how even the tiniest bit of good news can change your mind set!

I have not posted in awhile. I just did not feel like sharing my black hole with anyone. Truth be told it has been a very difficult few weeks. There were some good things mixed in, and I will for sure do some updates on those good things now that I am in a better place.

I knew when we decided to move from the US to Sweden that it was going to be difficult, however there is really no way to completely prepare yourself for how difficult it will be. I was letting it get the best of me. I see all of our expenses and see that I have no way to bring an income right now to fix the problem. I spend all of my days listening to people speak and I understand so little of it that I get frustrated and stop paying attention. This just causes me to retreat further in to my black hole. Once in that hole the only things I can think about are how bleak I perceive the immediate future to be. 

Well it is not that bleak!

There is a cycle that needs to be broken. I need to start looking at some of the positives. One of the issues is that Sweden has been my home for less than two months, but it feels like it has been far longer than that. It is that feeling of being here for so long that draws me to the negative thinking. 

My wife has been stuck with a zombie for a while now and I realized today the affect that it has on her as well. She called Skatteverket today to find out when they anticipated that I would receive my personnummer. The personnummer is the most vital thing in Sweden. Without it you cannot do anything, and I need mine so that I can enroll in language school and get a job. When she got to speak with them they informed her that I had been "written in Sweden" since July 18th and was already granted my personnummer. Apparently it was lost in the mail!! They are going to send me the information again so that I may get an ID card and register for SFI. 

The news today does not magically fix everything, it is however just the ray of light that I needed to guide me out off that damned black hole. I only needed a little good news and I felt a million times better. I am not expecting everything to be rainbows and unicorns going forward. But I now realize how bad my mind set had actually gotten. It was taking me away from the exciting new world I am in, and I was not enjoying life the way I should.

You "C" there is a fine line between coffee and pocket

I feel as though the Swedish language is going to kill me before I figure out how to speak it. I try to listen to conversations and am feeling like I recognize more words everyday. My family and friends here in Sweden are always urging me to try and use what Swedish I do know. My wife tells me that she thinks I have a good vocabulary so far, but that she thinks I should not be so shy about speaking. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am never one to shy away from speaking and that is what makes this so frustrating to me. I hear people speaking and it sounds so graceful and even beautiful at times. When I try however it sounds like a coughing donkey. I will say things that I practice a thousand times and my wife or any other Swedish person will look at me, cock their head to the side like a confused dog does and with a pleading look in their eyes ( as to say please god do not make that awful noise again ) they will say. "What"?

So I decided that I would work on writing things instead. Problem with writing things is that a lot of  Swedish words sound very similar with the only differences being long or short vowels. Plus the lovely Swedes felt the need to add in three extra letters to the alphabet (ö,ä,å) that I still have not quite figured out their sound, or the sounds for any of the other vowels for that matter. Anyway we (my wife, sister in law, daughter and myself) went downtown one day to participate in my sister in laws favorite sport (shopping). As the time was creeping up to around mid morning it was approaching coffee time. The Swedes are very passionate about their coffee breaks, which works well for me because I LOVE coffee. As we settled at a nice cafe in the heart of downtown Stockholm with our kaffe (coffee) and chokladboll (extremely wonderful chocolate balls) I decided to take to Facebook to inform the world what I was doing. Now before I get get carried away the "world" is actually only a couple hundred people of which maybe 10 can actually understand Swedish. I logged onto Facebook, checked in at the cafe and then with the confidence that all of my Swedes have instilled in me I typed "Ficka", and proceeded to enjoy my coffee and chocolate ball.

When we went shopping in the next store I saw a set of coffee cups that spelled out "FIKA" (the Swedish term for coffee break) and the panic and embarrassment hit me like sledge hammer to my stomach. 

"What in the hell had I just put on Facebook?"

I found my wife and asked. 

"Hey babe what does f-i-c-k-a mean"? I nervously waited for her reply.

"Pocket" she said without hesitation.

"Dang" I exclaimed.

My wife gave me a questioning look and I explained to her what had just happened. Her and her sister both tell me not to worry about it, but for the rest of the day I felt like everyone in Stockholm was staring at me whispering "pocket" under their breath.

I am sure that I am going to encounter many more language slip ups along the way. My Swedes all keep encouraging me to try no matter how bad I murder their language and for that I am thankful. 

Paperwork

I have now been in Sweden for almost two weeks. The time has absolutely flown by and to be honest, I don't have a real good time awareness right now. I am not really aware of the day of the week, or the time of the day for that matter. I really at this point have nothing I have to do, or to much that I can do until my paperwork is all completed.

Last week we went to the two offices that I need to register with. One is the tax office called Skatteverket, and the other is the migration office called Migrationsverket. Migrationsverket is where I had to go to get my green card. I had an appointment for 13:45 last Tuesday to go in and get my fingerprints and photograph taken for my green card. Not really knowing what to expect we arrived about an hour early and began waiting. Migrationsverket was the office that I had had so much difficulty with approving my green card to come here, so I was expecting the absolute worst from this experience. After waiting for 20 minutes there were no other people in line and I was up. I began speaking with the lady and she asked if I had an appointment. I told her that indeed I did have an appointment for 13:45. She looked at her clock, and then told me that I would have to wait because my appointment was not for another 30 minutes. This confused and upset me, because there were no other people in line. Defeated and frustrated I decided to go find the restroom. I was only gone for one or two minutes and when I returned my wife and daughter were in the cubicle getting my green card started and all I had to do was give my fingerprints, take a picture, and sign my name. This turned out to be one of the easiest things I have done for quite some time. My green card will be ready for me to go pick up this Thursday, and then I can go back to Skatteverket to finish applying for my person number.

The person number is by far the most important piece of paper in Sweden. Without a person number you basically do not exist. You cannot get a job, a bank account, utilities at your house, you cannot even rent a movie. I was told that my person number will take about four weeks for me to receive, so I am on a four week forced "vacation". Once I receive my person number I can enroll in my SFI classes to better learn the language, and also register at the labor office to get help finding a job.

So for the next four weeks I will continue to explore the area and work on my Swedish. I just hope that the time passes as fast as this first two weeks has.

First Day

Today was our first full day in Sweden and we took a bit of the afternoon to go and explore a section of our neighborhood. I can say that the weather today was far different than what we were used to in Arizona. Not really being accustomed to the Swedish Summer, my daughter and I did not dress for the storm that was coming in. The lesson that I learned here was that when it is windy in Sweden, it is going to be a little chilly as well. 

We wandered around a place called Globen City, which is a shopping area, a Hockey arena, and the brand new soccer stadium that opens this weekend. It is all a bit of a mess right now with the construction going on, but when it is finished it seems as though it will be a very nice area for us to be part of.

Before we went on our walk today we unloaded the boxes that we had shipped here from the U.S. It appears that everything made it, and only a couple of things were broken. I am not entirely sure what these boxes went through to get here, but I think that rolling down a few flights of stairs and maybe being dragged behind a vehicle may have been involved. These things looked rough, and for some very strange reason a couple of them were filled with sand?! Like I said though only a couple of things were broken so all in all it was okay. Tomorrow we are going to go do some shopping and get a few things for our apartment. Thanks to Mor Mor and Mor Far (my wife's parents) the things that we thought we were going to need is GREATLY reduced. They really took care of us and set us up with a lot of the things that we were going to need. This made it so we could stay in our apartment on our first night, and also makes it so we only need to get a few things tomorrow. This made the transition on the first day so much nicer. All in all I gotta say it was a good first day.

 

The Bike

For the last two years this has been my daughter's bike. Over that time she went from wobbly and scared to a parents heart attack inducing dare devil. When I walked outside today and saw my daughters bike all alone in the middle of my parents yard, it became so much more.

It became a catalyst for an outpouring of emotion that I have been bottling up since arriving in Colorado. This little bike brought me to tears. I looked at it and no longer saw a bike, but a piece of my daughters life. She overcame some of her biggest fears on this bike. She learned that pain goes away on this bike. She got her first taste of independence on this bike. She also became more responsible on this bike.

When I looked at this bike today, all I could think about is how much my life is changing right now. I have made a serious effort to not have any emotions showing for the last two weeks. I do not want anyone to misinterpret my emotions. I do not want my daughter to see daddy crying and scared about moving to Sweden because I am trying very hard to instill confidence in her. I cannot tell her that everything will be okay while I am crying and scared. So the choice I made was to bottle it up. Apparently my bottle was full and that damn bike was the last drop.

This bike saved us all today. There had been such a tension in the air today. Nobody was talking or enjoying each others company, everyone seemed to be subconsciously avoiding the elephant in the room. Once my emotional dam broke it liberated is all. It was like a cleansing heavy rain had fell and cleaned the air. This bike allowed me and my family to enjoy our last night together.

We will be leaving this bike behind but because of what it brought my daughter and now me, I will never forget this bike.

A new masterpiece

With one week left in the USA, nervousness is starting to set in. The last week in Colorado has been great! I have seen family, and friends that I have not seen for a long time. Physically I have had a chance to recuperate from the eight month process that moving out of the country became. Mentally though, I have not completely relaxed. There have been times when I have been able to just let my mind go clear, but most of the time it is still trying to process this crazy adventure. Between a family reunion, and a going away party with lots of old friends the questions have been plenty. I understand that everybody wants to know all of the details, but unfortunately I still do not have all of the answers.

It has been pretty much the same questions throughout.

What are you going to do for work? My reply always brings a blank stare, often with a little glimmer in their eyes as if saying this guy has lost his mind. Truth be told, I have ZERO idea of what I am going to do. I have said before that I am totally letting go and trusting that everything will be alright. I have a great support system in Sweden that is as invested in my families well being and success as I am. I will not fail! Or should I say I will not fail forever. I know that there will be failures, and they are going to be used as ways to improve and succeed. This decision was never going to be understood by all, but it is understood by me and my two queens. The questions have set my mind racing.

I try to think forward to next week and what my routine will be as I become a Swedish resident, and all I see is vast blank canvas. I cannot picture a normal day and what it will hold for me. I can easily sit here and look at tomorrow and see my day play out in my mind. That vision does not show for next week, and frankly it is strange. I am 40 years old, and cannot picture a simple day. It is both inspiring and  frightening at the same time. Every day for me has been relatively the same. I know have the opportunity to completely reinvent my life. I can make my new routine anything I want, but there is comfort in my old routine. I am afraid that if I attempt to have the same routine, I will not grow and take advantage of this new life. I am afraid that if I attempt a new routine, I will lose everything that makes me me. I know that I could lead more of an exciting life, but what would that be? How many of you would want that blank canvas to start your masterpiece all over again? Think if you could start all over, what would you do? Would you change things or would you do the same?

Next week, I will be looking at my new blank canvas that is my life. I will pick up my new Swedish paintbrush and begin my new masterpiece. Hopefully I will like the picture!

Trying for some down time

We started our journey north on Saturday. This first leg consisted of an eleven hour drive from Arizona to Colorado. While long, the drive is through some of the most beautiful scenery of the American southwest. This is the land that I grew up in. I saw it everyday through my childhood, and unfortunately after time I guess I took it for granted. On this drive however I was completely struck by the beauty. I guess it must be the fact that I am leaving it all, and honestly do not know when I will return.

Once we arrived at my parents house the goal was to spend the time recuperating from the madness that has been the last eight months. So far though it has been vey difficult to get the down time. There are so many sights and people to see. We took my daughter on her first mountain hike to a place called Hanging Lake. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a 1.2 mile hike covering 1100 vertical feet. Figured it was necessary for my daughter to see the beauty of Colorado before we moved to Sweden. She enjoyed the hike immensely. 

     

The people seeing is difficult. Trying to get family members and friends together is like trying to control a heard of caffeinated squirrels. I know that there are people who want to see us before we move, and we want to see everybody as well. Unfortunately we are all not on the same vacation for two weeks. We are trying to get everyone together in a couple of group gatherings. One for family, and one for friends. 

So as all of this rolls on, there has been very little down time so far. I have this feeling of no matter what I do, someone will feel disappointed or left out. I guess I was a little naive thinking that there would be time to do everything. Whatever I end up doing, it is a win win situation for me. If I get to see everyone and everything I will be happy. If I get my downtime, I will finally get to recuperate a little bit.

Goodbyes

We started saying our goodbyes. It started at the end of May when my parents drove down to take Emma with them to Colorado until Jess and I drive there at the end of this month. We had to witness Emma say farewell to her best friend from school, and then at a dinner get together she had to say goodbye to her second family. It was a difficult event for all of us, these people have all played an important role in Emma's life. She will never forget CT and Suz, and Uncle Jason and Aunt Kristi.

This week we had a little going away party for Jess and I to say goodbye to some of the people we have met since moving to Arizona two years ago. It actually meant more to me than I had originally thought that it would. I had led myself to believe that having not been here too long meant that I really had not made any real meaningful connections. I was wrong! The night was wonderful and I realized that I had indeed made some good friends from some great people.

The hardest goodbye of all happened day before yesterday. We had to say goodbye to our beloved Casper. He was, or rather is the GREATEST dog ever. We got him six years ago as a birthday gift for Emma and since the moment we picked him up he made all of our lives brighter. There have been gallons of tears shed this week, and they just keep coming. We will be on our way to Colorado in a little over a week, and we will redo the entire goodbye process at least two more times for all of our family and friends there.

Goodbyes are difficult especially with those who have impacted our lives so greatly. I will however take away great memories of those people (and dog) and look back on them whenever I need to brighten my day. If we live our lives afraid to say goodbye, then we will never grow to our full potential.

The home stretch

We are coming down the home stretch for our move to Sweden. All of the paperwork is completed and approved.This step was by far the most important to have completed. At times it had me questioning if it was simply not going to happen, however I  never gave up hope and frankly the harder it got the more I believed that moving to Sweden was the right thing to do. People always say that the harder things are, the more rewarding they are when you get them. I believe that is because you appreciate those things more that you work hardest for.

We have only a few belongings left to try and sell, and to be honest if we can't sell them it will not be the end of the world. Sure it would be nice have some extra money in the account to live off of but I am no longer going to lose sleep worrying about it. The biggest thing we have happening now is going through years of stuff to determine what goes in a box to be shipped, what goes in a suitcase to be taken as luggage, and what goes to the trash can. So far it seems that the majority of it needs to go in the trash.

While we are on the home stretch to actually get to Sweden, it is becoming abundantly clear to me that once we get there I will begin climbing another mountain that dwarfs the one I just conquered. I am studying my Swedish all the time between Rosetta Stone, multiple apps for my phone and ipad,  trying to read Aftonbladet (a Swedish newspaper) regularly, and a new game my wife and I play where we only text each other in Swedish. I am eagerly looking forward to enrolling in SFI (a language course offered for immigrants) because I feel the sooner I am fluent the sooner I will fully be able to embrace my new home. I think I might be on the same language level as a first grader, which will work out well because I will have my daughter to learn with. Hopefully she will share her school notes with me.

ACCEPTED!!!!

At 5:45 yesterday morning it finally came. The Email I have been anxiously awaiting for the last few months. Every morning for three months the first thing I do in the morning is check my Email, often times not even out of bed yet and more asleep than awake. This has been my morning ritual. We knew that we were going to receive something this morning, but were not sure exactly what it was going to be. Anyway, its early and I am trying to read through my Email list after a terrible night of failing to sleep, and there it was looking at me from the inbox. As I am opening the Email my lovely ( oh so patient first thing in the morning ) wife was asking me what it said.

"Hold on baby I am opening it right now." I said

"Well how long does it take?" She questioned.

As I begin reading I realize that this document is translated very poorly. I read it once, twice, three times and still do not understand it.

"What does it say? Did you get it?" She asks again a little irritated. 

"I don't know!" I respond.

"What do you mean you don't know?!? She snarls.

"I mean I don't know! I can't figure out what it is saying." I fire back.

"Here! You read it! Most of it is in Swedish anyway." I say defeated.

She grabs my phone and begins reading it. At this point I am still not awake, and feeling confused because as I re read it in my mind it still makes no sense. I hear a little squeal from my wife, and she says "you got it! You can go!"

The weight that lifted off of me at that moment was immense. I could see clearly now, it was like a heavy fog had been surrounding me for the last three months, and it was gone.

I woke up this morning and did not check my Email first thing.

Two months left

It is coming down the home stretch now, less than two months before the big adventure. Still no decision from Migrationsverket, but I am confident it will come soon. We petitioned for an expedited decision and ran into another "bump" in the road. Mine and my daughters applications were separated and given separate case numbers. When we inquired with the embassy as to why this happened, they said that my daughter did not need a visa to move to Sweden because she has dual citizenship. This was news to us, as we had checked with US Immigration shortly after she was born and they told us that since she was born to a Swedish mother she did not qualify for dual citizenship. The Swedish Embassy said we just need to go and get her a Swedish passport and she was good to go. Well there is not enough time to do that, so we asked them to just send the visa paperwork and we would get the Swedish passport when we arrive in Sweden. With that being the last piece of the puzzle we need, they went ahead and forwarded her paperwork. Now we just wait for the final stamp of approval and we have all our papers in order.

This paperwork process has still been a breeze compared to what we went through when we were married. While easier, it is still an epic adventure through government red tape and departments that do not know what the other departments are doing. In the long run the prize for this adventure would be worth twice the hassle. 

It is turning Spring in Sweden and this is what awaits us upon our arrival. 

Stuck in a holding pattern

"This is your captain speaking. We are not cleared for landing, so we are going to level off and take a holding pattern."

I heard these words on a flight once. What it meant was that for some reason our plane was not going to be allowed to land at the destination. We just flew in circles for awhile, just waiting for whatever issue to be cleared up.

Right now I hear that captain in my head saying that same phrase over again everyday. My move to Sweden is in a holding pattern. What is causing this delay appears to be the Migrationsverket. These are the lovely people in Sweden who decide if my daughter and I will be granted our residency permits.

We have been moving along well with our schedule, in fact we have been moving ahead of schedule. All of our applications were submitted quickly, and had been processing pretty fast. We had our yard sale, and sold almost everything we own. We put in notice at our jobs, and are currently training replacements. We are only about 10 weeks for our planned move date. There are only a few loose ends to tie up and we are off on the new adventure.

Then the captain speaks!

The Migrationsverket has not approved our residency permits. In fact thanks to a "clerical error" they lost the record of my interview for about a month. Now that it is found, we are stuck waiting for a decision. We have to give notice at our house in about three weeks. We have to by airline tickets. We cannot get the tickets without the visa's and once we give notice at our house we will be homeless 30 days later. All I can do is sit and wonder if we are going to make it.

The problem with holding patterns is there is only so much fuel on the plane. There is a point of no return, where if the captain decides to he cam turn the plane around and safely land. Once that point is crossed the only options are to clear for landing, or run out of fuel and plummet to the ground.

The point of now return is quickly approaching.

I am only praying that we get cleared to land!

A First For Me

I have a lot going on right now. As you can maybe imagine moving to a new country will provide a long list of things to get done. I have always had a lot of balls in the air, but have managed very well to juggle them all and maintain some sanity. This week however I finally lost the sanity aspect of the whole thing.
The balls I was juggling started becoming more numerous. Then they seemed to be getting heavier and harder to keep up with. Then finally out of nowhere they suddenly turned into chainsaws that someone saw fit to light on fire.
I am still waiting for my immigration paperwork, that thought alone is constantly on my mind. Things at work are as hectic as ever. On top of those main worries was our yard sale. We spent the entire week moving all of our belongings into piles of sell, trash, and keep. I had been really stressing about the yard sale. My main fears being are we going to be stuck with a bunch of things that we will have to panic to try and get rid of at the last moment, and what if we sell everything right now and have nothing to use for the next two months. The two fears I was having about the yard sale directly conflicted with each other. I think that was what triggered my meltdown. Yep, I said it. I had a meltdown!
This was a meltdown of epic proportions. I stated before that I felt like I was juggling flaming chainsaws and that is in no way an exaggeration. My brain would not focus, my thoughts were like a kaleidoscope. Except that the beautiful colors a kaleidoscope gives were replaced by all of the things that need to be completed before moving to Sweden. I was stuck in my own head and could not find a way out.
I was at work doing my morning prep list. My brain kept changing channels, and I could not focus. Next my breathing started to get faster and shallower. Then my chest tightened. I felt trapped. I could not do anything, except sit on the floor in the walk in cooler and panic. Then the cherry on top, I just began to lose it, sobbing like a baby. What was happening to me? I half thought that I was going insane and half thought that I was maybe really having a heart attack. I manager to pull it together enough to call my wife. For two reasons this seemed good to me. First if I could talk to her maybe I could sort it out, and second if I was dying I wanted to hear her voice before I was gone.
I can only imagine what her thoughts were when I called. I tried to explain to her the best I could what was happening, but I did not really know myself so I was not making myself very clear. Finally she said some things that made my mind slow down a bit, and I could focus little.
I obviously survived the ordeal and was actually able to realize I was not going crazy. I also realized through this that my wife is an amazing woman. She talked me down from my first panic attack.
I am not looking forward to having another panic attack. I have heard people talk about them before, and really did not comprehend what they were talking about. I even thought at times that these people must be ill equipped for dealing with life. I am sorry for those thoughts, and I truly apologize to anyone who has ever had one of these evil things.

Lessons from a Recycled Robot

Today I had the joy of working on a school project with Emma. As we were working on her Recycled Robot a few thoughts came to mind. The first being that we were actually making a pretty cool robot, and she was really creative with all of the things she wanted to build with our box of recyclables. Second I began to think how nice it will be to spend more time with Emma following our move. You see, right now as with a lot of Americans I work a lot of hours and I work a very hectic schedule. There are weeks that I work such an opposite schedule of Emma that I don't even get to see her. One stretch that I worked last month, I logged SIX hours with my daughter over five days.

I inherited a very strong work ethic from my father. For all my life my Dad has worked very hard. As a young boy I watched and decided that that was how things were supposed to be. Dad hammered out twelve plus hour days like they were nothing, traveled for weeks at a time and I don't really ever recall him complaining about it. When he was home he always made time for me and that has been what drives me. I want to be like my Dad!

The lesson from today however found my questioning why do we do it. Why do I pay a phenomenal nanny close to $1000 a month so that my wife and I can go to work. I know obviously that we need money for bills and what not, but when does it end. I have a house full of stuff, that to be perfectly honest I am not home enough to truly enjoy. Emma has tons of toys, but a couple of times now she has told both my wife and myself that she doesn't want new toys if we could just stay home. How did my Dad balance all of it? How do you balance it?

With the move to Sweden I am going to reinvent my family. I want the only thing money can't buy. I want TIME with my Queens. I will still work hard. I will probably have to work harder to make my way as a foreigner, but I will do it smarter. I will not accept that I have to miss Emma growing up, to provide for my family. I will still try to be like my Dad, he always made time for me.

So a quick thank you to Lili the robot for reminding me what it is supposed to be about. And a thank you to Emma for asking me to help with her Recycled Robot project. I am glad that on this occasion I made the time, like my Dad always did for me.

Sell, Sell, Sell

We are bringing a whole new meaning to spring cleaning at our house. It is that time of year where everyone knocks the winter dust and cobwebs out of their homes, and takes inventory of what they have or what they are going to purchase going forward. With the move to Sweden fast approaching (roughly 12 weeks) we are attacking this task with a different outcome in mind. Our house sounds like the floor of the stock market with cries of SELL SELL ringing throughout the house.

Moving across the globe has made all of our possessions disposable to us. The question then becomes does it hold a cash value, and if so how much? So as we are cleaning I am constantly saying to myself  "Would you buy this?" So far I have answered yes to almost everything, of course, I bought it in the first place. I am of the mindset at this point that if I can get ANY money for something, it is better than nothing.

So if you are trolling through Craigslist and you see a "Slightly Used" anything for sale, think of me and remember that in my mind it seemed to be worth something.

Interview Day

Today was interview day at the Swedish Consulate. Another step in the process is completed. I had been nervously awaiting this step. I remember when the Queen and I were married we had a few of these interviews to go through. Each one brought on huge stress, and then turned out to be very uneventful. Today was no different.

I woke this morning not feeling very with it. I did not sleep well last night, the stress of the day keeping me on edge. As I was getting ready I hear "breathe baby, it will be fine". These words are the same that I had said to her countless times, but it was hard to believe. I knew in my head and heart that this interview was going to be like all of the others I had been to, but the nagging feeling would not go away.

The drive to the consulate took about a half hour and was filled with nervous conversation to simply fill the air with words. Inside I was picturing what the consulate would look like, and what was going to happen while there. I was lost in my mind, which is NEVER a good idea. By the time we had parked I was imagining a building similar to a Brownstone in Georgetown with gates, guards, and grand gardens. What I got was a very small very bland office in a complex that apparently doubled as headquarters for a wine tour business. The only Swedish thing about it was a shelf of Dahl Horses, and the business card of my interviewer that was colored blue and yellow.

My interviewer was very friendly, and laid all the cards on the table for me. There are going to be three questions and I need to photocopy a few documents she said. While handing over passports for photocopying I began to panic about these questions a little. What information would be acquired through only three questions. Finally after the photocopies and some background info she asks "are you ready"? Not really I thought, but lets go.

The first question she asked "Did you marry the queen by your own free will?"
Uh? Yes? I replied.
The second question she asked "Was your marriage arranged by anyone"?
Uh? No? I replied.
The final question she asked "Were you married by power of attorney"?
Uh? No? I replied.
My head was spinning so much through the intense questioning that I almost missed it as she said "Thank you for your time, and if anything further is needed I will e-mail you."

That's it. I am done. I totally blew this thing out of proportion. A couple of thank yous and some small talk and the Queen and I were walking out the door.

As we were walking to the car the only thing I could think to say was "See baby, I told you it was nothing to worry about." As she rolled her eyes and gave me her best giggle, I got the sneaking suspicion that she knows I how nervous I truly was.

Faith, Trust, and Letting Go

We all have faith and trust in people. Some people we know, and some we do not. I trust everyday that the guy driving down the interstate pays enough attention to what he is doing that I do not die in a flaming twisted ball of metal on the side of the road. I give this trust with out a second thought, because if I did think about it all the time I would never leave my house. I basically trust my life to complete strangers. So you would think that it would be easy to trust people you know and love. Apparently not! 

This move is into the great unknown for me. The first thing people ask me when they hear that we are moving is "what are you going to do for a job?". "I don't know" I reply. I have faith in my Swedish family that when they say "it is all going to be okay", that it will. But how can they know?

I read a Swedish newspaper written for English speakers called The Local, and they cover many issues involving English speakers moving to Sweden. I find their information informative, and frankly frightening. I read how hard it is to find an apartment (up to 8 years wait in some cases), and the difficulties of finding a job. These are real life people trying to do the same thing that my family is doing. Honestly it scares the crap out of me. 

The beginning of each Skype conversation with my sister-in law in Sweden is overrun with these articles I have read. In her calmest most reassuring voice Miccan (the sister-in law) always tells me " it is going to be okay". The faith and trust in her should come easier than that of the stranger on the interstate, but it doesn't. I have to force myself to believe her. It lasts for a few days or more, and then I come across another article that freaks me out. Another Skype call and another calm down and we go full circle. Meanwhile some where in this cycle, my Swedish family found us an apartment to live in. What? I just read that people were waiting 8 years for apartments, and they found one for us in 8 months! Maybe they are right, maybe it will all be okay. So I have decided that they have earned my faith and trust. They have not once failed to deliver on what they say, they will not set us up to fail.

I am going to believe what they tell me.

I am letting go....

Decisions

We all make them everyday. Some are easy, some are difficult, and some are a little of both. They start from the moment your alarm clock goes off in the morning, and if you are like me they only get more difficult as the day progresses. The worst thing with decisions is that some of them totally sneak up on you. A few months ago one of those big ones snuck up on me. My wife tells me " I am ready to go home". That statement has led to the easiest most difficult decision of my life. Easy, because of course we can go its not like she was from Detroit of some other 3rd world area, she was born and raised in Stockholm. Difficult, because of the fact that we (our daughter and myself) do not know how to live in Sweden. I have never been so scared and excited about anything in my life. I know that this is the right decision, and sometimes the right decisions are the scariest ones..........