Expat In Sweden – thegirlwithcoldhands

An Expat’s Life In Sweden : Winter’s Light & Details

December 19, 2018December 19, 2018 girlwithcoldhandsLeave a comment

The temperature has been rising again, so today was very slushy and I was very miserable, so I’m going to share some shots from a few weeks ago when the air was cold enough to catch in my throat and the light was glorious.

The light of spring and summer doesn’t get to me the way winter’s light does. Winter’s softer light gives me an energy that I’m unable to find in any other season. In spring and summer, more often than not I find myself saying ‘oh, piss off already, sun,’ and I can find myself slipping into many a depression during the warm months, because there’s too much light and not the sort of light that feeds my spirit.

The details of winter – iced streams, frozen spider webs – can hold me captivated for hours. Literally. I nearly always loose track of time when I’m walking in the forest in winter, and more often than not, find myself making my way home in the dark.

I would love to know which seasons help your spirit thrive.

An Expat’s Life In Sweden : My Relationship With Winter

December 15, 2018December 15, 2018 girlwithcoldhandsLeave a comment

I think about winter all. the. time. There’s never a time when the cold isn’t on my mind. As soon as the year ticks over into November, I turn my face to the sky for that first snowfall.

But snow has been scarce this year. Extremely scarce. Scarily scarce. I want to move further north, where it’s colder, and darker and the snow has been falling steadily for weeks. I dream of having a house where the forests meet the mountains and people are few and far between.

I’m grateful for the ice that we have though, even if the temperatures are fluctuating wildly, leaving it to weep then crackle and freeze…weep then crackles and freeze.

There’s a wall of rock near home, one that has captivated ever since I moved to Sweden. I pass it almost everyday, but it’s in winter time when I can’t stay away from it, for those months when it grows ice.

These photos were taken today, at around 2.30. I’d just come back from the store and ran inside to grab my camera. The rock wall with become covered with more ice over the coming months, and while today, many of the icicles were breakable, they will become thicker and more steadfast, glistening and shimmering in the short hours of daylight, and gathering strength in the cold hours of night.

An Expat’s Life In Sweden : The Stress Of Being An Expat Parent

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018 girlwithcoldhandsLeave a comment

What’s happened to those videos I said I would be uploading, huh? Well, as you will have heard if you saw the one story I uploaded yesterday on Instagram, you’ll know that Saga has had a bad stomach the past few days, which has led to me spending most of my days changing nappies and most of my nights singing Blinka lilla stjärna (Twinkle little star) to a restless baby.

A friend of mine recently said to me that motherhood is like having two and a half jobs. I think motherhood as an introverted expat with bi-polar is like having four full-time jobs and half a dozen part-time ones on the side. The past few days have seen me wanting to burst into tears and swim back to England.

Life can be difficult when you’re a sea away from family, a sea away from what was home for nearly 30 years and you don’t have a baby. It can feel almost impossible when you have a baby and a mental health illness. I’m not one for giving up, but I’ve said, well, whispered several times over the last 72 hours, ‘I just want to go home.’

I always took having my family close by for granted when I was living in England: ‘Hey mum, can I get a lift there? Hey mum, would you mind grabbing this, that or the other when you’re at Tesco? Hey mum, do you have time to dye my hair? Yeah, I know you said you’d never do it again after it stained the bathroom sink last time, but please!’

Then I came to Sweden and I didn’t have that anymore. There was no family nearby to ask for help, or to lean on when I needed support. It was tough before Saga was born, but I coped, most of the time. After she arrived, I often found myself, head in hands wondering ‘how the hell am I going to do this…’

Being a stay-at-home mum without my own mum around to watch her grow up and chip in with advice/hugs/offers to take Saga for a few hours is extremely fucking hard. I’m not going to sugar coat it. But there are moments in the chaos and the difficulties where I can think to myself ‘I’m doing ok, I got this,’ and Saga will smile, and I’ll grab my phone and try and capture the smile, so my mum and I can share the moment, even though we’re a sea apart.