Physical and emotional closure

Ten days ago, we sold our house in Atlanta. Maintaining the house for the past 3.5 years was an expensive and logistical headache. Coordinating home repairs and finding renters while living abroad was a constant burden. Fortunately for us, our current tenants enjoyed the house so much that they emailed us an offer to buy it. Unfortunately for us, negotiating all of the closing processes while living abroad was more challenging than usual. 

To coordinate a timely closing, the US lawyers emailed us the legal documents to print on our side, sign, notarize and ship back. Easy, right? WRONG.

For one thing, US Legal paper, the size of paper required for printing out all of those affidavits and seller's documents, was not available in Sweden. A frantic search of local office supply stores resulted in the realization that I was going to have to be creative. 

Resourcefully, I spied my children's drawing pad of paper - it looked long enough but would it do the trick? I'm not one for DIY but after much measuring and cutting, I finally had 28 sheets of US Legal paper ready for the printer. Since it was much thicker than normal printer paper - as it was intended to absorb markers and crayons, not printer ink - I had to individually feed it each one into the printer, reset the printer settings and hit print - 28 different times. This was extremely time consuming to say the least!

Then came the little issue of finding a notary to witness and notarize our signatures. All of Sweden was on vacation when we did our preliminary search. Luckily for us, the only notary (publicus notarius, FYI) in our county opened the day before we had to ship them back to the US in time for the closing. We have only one day to pull this off. STRESS. Five hundred kronor and an hour later and we were out the door - taking a one and a half hour train ride into the city to FedEx the documents back to the US.

There was a mixup with the FedEx shipping label as Sweden couldn't figure out who to bill. The shipping label was for US shipping but it was coming from Sweden. FedEx did a few head scratches while figuring out their billing procedures so our lovely notarized documents sat in the mailroom for an extra day. Now we are in even more of a TIME CRUNCH than before and everything is out of our control. CUE MORE STRESS.

We tracked the documents and they arrived in Atlanta at 10am local time and the closing occurred at 1pm that day. Being so far out of the picture, nobody remembered to tell us if we had actually sold the house or not. There is always the off-chance that things go wrong at a closing. Jon reached out to the buyers the following day and they informed us that yes, the closing went well and they now owned our house. Done and Done.

All of the stressful parts of selling a house were made that much more cumbersome simply by living abroad. Every aspect of this process required at least two hours of online research and then the calling of various offices to understand the process. We were constantly thinking, "How can we make a Swedish solution fit our American problem?" Apparently the only solution might involve staying up for hours, measuring and trimming 28 sheets of drawing paper both lengthwise and widthwise and trying not to tear your hair out in the process.

In addition to the logistical challenges, I also felt strong emotions about selling our house. We have nothing physically tying us back "home." We have no items in storage - the management company threw away my wedding dress and photo albums so no need to take care of that anymore. Phew. Thanks guys. And now we don't have a house. I know we are saving money and stress and everyone is excited about that but it also means that our Atlanta chapter is closed closed.

Our house was symbolic to me of our old lives. It was our first house, the location of our marriage proposal and where we spent the first nine months of our son's life. While I keep those very happy memories with me, the sale of the house closed off that chapter for us permanently. The cliche loved/hated by expats, "You can't go home again" isn't just for a physical place, it is also for an emotional state of being. For the first time in 3.5 years, I really feel like we are permanently abroad. And as much as I love living abroad, I also loved our lives in the US. It was definitely with a bit of a heavy heart that I mailed those closing documents. 

Part of my sadness stems from the lack of a "proper goodbye." I don't know what one is, but for me, I don't felt like I had one. I didn't have enough farewell dinners or get togethers with friends - there just wasn't enough time. Are there ever "enough" farewell dinners anyway? 

You never know when your time will be the "one last" and you never know who it will be with. During the five weeks we had to prepare for our move to Sweden, we were in such a rush to pack up our lives that I never got to enjoy those "one lasts" in our neighborhood. That one last coffee at our favorite corner cafe. That one last dinner at our favorite restaurant. That one last walk through the park in the springtime. In reality, I did have those "one last" moments except I didn't know it at that time.

Moving abroad has made me find creative solutions to problems I didn't know ever existed - like creating US Legal sized paper in a foreign country - and it has made me appreciate the "one lasts" I will never have again. Sometimes we don't get the emotional closure we are looking for.

Like most things in life, this was bittersweet. A little bit of sadness and a little bit of joy as we let go of the things we no longer own. I'm still making my peace with this and that's OK.

My son thinks I'm a cold-blooded killer

We had a minor incident where my son saw me clap-kill a fruit fly in our kitchen and since that clearly murderous moment, he's been eyeing my behaviors around animals very closely. I've been on my best behavior and have only been killing fruit flies after he goes to bed or is at preschool. As far as he's concerned, it was just an isolated incident for which I have already profusely apologized.

Yesterday, I was helping his sister wash her hands in the sink and Little Buddha (I'm just going to refer to him as that because it's so much more appropriate than his name at the moment) was chatting with me about something - probably Mutant Mania or something. I saw a little gnat lazily wander by the stream of water flowing in the sink and I couldn't help myself. I splashed the gnat and helped the water wash the poor guy down the sink. Was it a heartless act? Probably but I really thought Little Buddha's attention was somewhere else.

Nope.

Little Buddha: Why did you just do that, Mama?!? Why did you get that bug wet? It wasn't hurting anyone! It can't swim in the sink. It's not supposed to be in the sink!

Me: What? Was that a bug? [Incredulous look] I thought that was just a black spot on the sink. I didn't know it was a little bug.

Foolishly I thought I could back out of this with a little fib. Nope.

LB: It wasn't a black spot though, it was a fly. Why did you do that?

Me: I'm sorry, Little Buddha. I didn't realize it was a fly. I won't ever get a fly wet again.

We carry on and unfortunately, my lax attitude towards cleaning is about to bite me in the rumpa. I have been really busy working every day from the minute I drop the kids off at preschool until the second I pick them up. I've been focused on everything else and have totally let housekeeping, laundry, grocery shopping, you name it, slide past me.

There just so happens to be a dead fly in the middle of the hardwood floor of the living room. I swear, it wasn't there earlier! He literally showed up dead on my doorstep. We both discover the carcass at the same time. Little Buddha happens upon the quite large and very much dead house fly and turns on me with so much hurt in his eyes.

LB: YOU KILLED ANOTHER FLY! How could you do this? You made a promise!

Me: Little Buddha! I swear, I did NOT kill that fly. He died completely on his own. He died a perfectly natural death. It was just his time to die.

LB: How did he die then? [indignant stance] I don't see flies just dropping out of the air. Did you do this? [He claps his hands loudly in my usual fruit fly killing manner]

Me: No, I did not clap him.

LB: What about this? [He slaps his palm onto the hardwood floor]. Did you squish him?!

Me: No, I swear. I did not kill that fly.

At this point, Little Buddha is so adamant in his demonstrations of possible fly-killing methods that I'm trying really hard not to laugh. His shrill little boy voice and hand slapping is just too comical. You know when the corners of your mouth are dying to go into FULL SMILE and you have to fight it? It totally makes you look like you're lying. My mouth was betraying my true innocence.

Me: OK, Little Buddha. You were right. I didn't think that fly was a black spot on the sink. I did wash him down and kill him because I thought you weren't watching. I'm sorry for that but I swear - I had nothing to do with this fly's death. I would admit it if I did.

LB: OK. I guess so.

Me: Can we put the fly in the garden? He deserves a burial.

LB: That way he knows where he is?

Me: What do you mean by that? You mean, so he is where he should be?

LB: Yeah. [He cradles the dead fly in his hands, walks it outside and throws it into the garden.] There little fly. Now you know where you are.

These flies need to a) stop being a nuisance and b) stop spontaneously dying on my doorstep and making me look bad.

Embracing fredagsmys

During my intensive Swedish language course, our teacher introduced me to some new aspects of Swedish culture. Some of the cultural nuances of Swedish life are the types of things I probably would learn if I was married to a Swede but since we're all Americans over here, I had to learn these in the classroom.

One Swedish concept that I brought home with me was the concept of fredagsmys. Swedes love to throw two words together, like fredag (Friday) and mys (coziness) to create a new word. It translates into, "Cozy Friday." The concept is that at the end of a busy work week, you just want to relax and unwind. Swedes usually celebrate fredagsmys by buying and eating a ton of chips, candy and other junk food snacks while watching a fun movie with the family. Cell phones, tablets and computers are put away for non-electronic forms of entertainment to unwind and reconnect.

But Lisa, you just said they watch a movie. Aren't movies electronic forms of entertainment? I know, I know but this is how they celebrate it. I don't make the fredagsmys rules.

Having survived numerous cold and dark winters in Sweden, I can attest to how fredagsmys became so popular. The lighting of candles around the house, snuggling into warm blankets and eating a metric ton of chips would make me feel all warm and cozy too.

We are implementing fredagsmys in our house every Friday. This Friday, our fredagsmys activity will be a fun game of Yahtzee with the kids - they love throwing dice everywhere - and eating some frozen pizza because nobody wants to cook. We can be lazy on Fridays! It's fredagsmys time!

What I love about this is that everyone can implement fredagsmys in their homes if they want - living in Sweden or elsewhere. Turn off your cell phone, put away your troubles for the day and cozy up with a good book and some salty snacks.

Happy Friday!

The Sorriest Playground

One of our favorite things to do with our children is what we've dubbed, The Playground Crawl. We love to explore new cities by going on a little tour of their playgrounds and hopping from place to place with random stops for coffees for the adults and ice cream for everyone. We've happily toured Stockholm and Lyon in this manner and were looking forward to discovering the plentiful playgrounds of Hoboken. We had only a few days to share between Hoboken, NJ and Manhattan before we flew back to Stockholm at the end of our vacation and we figured a scenic Playground Crawl of Hoboken's finest play spaces was the best way to finish up our vacation.

Hoboken has some of the most scenic playgrounds I have ever seen. It is such a family friendly city, in close commuting distance to NYC, and the playgrounds were top notch. There were spongy recycled tire shreds/sneaker rubber used as a soft crash pad that replaced dirt in most areas, the play equipment was new and in good condition and the views were incredible. Most playgrounds had a nice smattering of shade provided by beautifully tall trees and they all had a water feature of some sort to help the children cool off a bit and splash around. I did a quick survey and determined that neither of my children would ever be able to hurt themselves in this environment and settled on a nearby bench to finally relax and enjoy my coffee.

And that's when I first heard it..."Sorry!"

It was the first, but certainly not the last, unnecessary apology I heard that morning. Once you start hearing something, your ears seek it out and you just can't stop hearing it.