In just one week’s time we will be arriving on American soil. One week. Seven days. A number which is both exciting and a bit distressing, given that everything we own is still in boxes. There is so much to think about and so many small details left. Like yesterday, I unpacked winter overalls for the kids and hung them by the door. Not so useful in August, maybe, but needed as soon as we arrive back here in December. I’m realizing that it’s unrealistic to try to pack everything we could need for a 4 month trip. Especially with a baby who outgrows his clothes every 10 minutes. What size will he need when the weather gets colder? That’s what secondhand stores are for.
Speaking of everything being in boxes! This picture’s a couple weeks old but still captures the chaos of moving. On this occasion, while living life in two places, somehow the baby ended up in one place and the baby bed in the other. Thankfully we had plenty of boxes!
So today marks the one week countdown. Staffan is still working this week in a town where we no longer live, though the kids and I will be there this weekend for a farewell reception. It is a relief to have the move behind us and all that went with it. I was eager to move and don’t feel at all sad about leaving, but still it is a strange feeling to see a place that has been so full of life – our life! – looking empty and sterile. Despite everything, it was impossible not to feel a bit nostalgic as we left the house where we brought Peter home for the first time, and where Emelie learned and grew and changed so much from a 2 to a 3 year old. The little house on Smedvägen will always be special because of those things.
And while we’re talking milestones, Staffan and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Though it seems impossible that either of us are grown up enough to have something like a 10th anniversary, the calendar does not lie. There is too much going on around it right now for any real celebrations of the occasion, but we will at least be in the same place by the end of the day, which somehow seems fitting given that our relationship was long distance for so long before we were married.
The real “celebration” is soon to come anyway. Our trip is certainly not an anniversary celebration or a second honeymoon in any way. But it is a part of fulfilling the kind of life we dreamed of and planned all those years ago, in the dreamy “some day” kind of conversations you have when you’re newly in love and spending hours and days together on a hiking trail. The kind where you silently wonder if any of this could ever really happen. Already then we talked about this trip. And in a week it will become a reality.
So happy anniversary, Staffan. I love you, I love who I am when I’m with you, I love who we are together and the family we are building. I love that we are, in our 30’s, pursuing the dreams we dreamed together in our 20’s. May there be many more years, many more adventures, and many more dreams.