Whirlwind.

That’s how I feel the past two months are best described. But that’s probably not entirely true either. Since I came home from California almost seven weeks ago the pace has been high and so many fun things have happened, though I have had a little bit of time to relax and have summer break. A lot of impressions though.

After a week my jetlag was somewhat fixed and it was time to start work with Stockevik swim school. This was my eight summer as a swim teacher running the show and it was as fun as always, though there are definitely days when you really don’t want to get in the water but all you can do is to put on a smile and jump in with the kids. Summer 2019 will still go down in the books as a pretty decent swim school summer, relatively warm waters and only a few days with rain and jelly fish. In addition we had one of the best team of teachers in a while. After four weeks of swim school was done, we headed up north to Lofoten for a week and a halv and these lines are written in he car driving back down to Skåne again. We left Moskenes with the 07:00 ferry to Bodö this morning and have about 30 miles left before stopping for the night in Östersund. Lofoten have been as amazing as always and my camera have been with me a lot. Below are a few samples.

I looked at my camera and realized that since I bought it a year ago I’ve taken almost 10 000 photos. I love photography and perhaps that is what this blog, my little corner of the internet, will morph into now that I no longer have the need to keep friends and family at home updated about my life on the other side of the ocean. Some photos and a little bit of text when I feel like it (but most photos will probably be on Instagram), and perhaps some information and marketing about me, I mean, it’s important to be on top of your digital footprint. This site will have to be rebuilt a little, but that will come at a later stage. First I want, for my own sake, to write a couple of lines about returning home and and sum up a year in California.

I stepped off the plane in Copenhagen and made my way home over the Öresundbridge. When I got out of the taxi outside the house on Körsbärsvägen, and rolled my suitcase up the driveway, I had to stop for a moment and pinch myself. Everything looked exactly the same as I remember from leaving almost 10 months ago. I opened the door and punched in the code for the alarm, without even thinking. Just muscle memory. My old room looked the same, the road to the grocery store and the city center of little Lund too. It was nice to ride my blue bike, to play my Fender and hug people I haven’t seen in a while. But I’ll also willingly admit that already after less than 24 hours I was able to diagnose myself with a pretty serious case of the   “coming home blues”. Perhaps it’s a tale as old as times, out traveling, returns home and finds home to be a little small and like “nothing has changed”, even though it’s not entirely true.

I am of the firm opinion that challenges and situations that push you a little bit outside of your comfort zone are excellent opportunities to grow as a person, if you chose to. But that doesn’t mean that you have to travel or leave home to grow. It also doesn’t mean that growth stops, or reverses, when you return home. I think that is what scares me, what I’m a little bit afraid of about returning home, to stop growing. Stagnation. To not be in a new situation all the time, to not have the new and exciting identity of  “exchange student in California”, that feels full of possibilities, but to be back in environments and situations where you have a set of old epithets and labels that you don’t feel fit or want anymore, but that are quite difficult to not pick back up with the thought patterns and habits you so very easily fall back into upon return.

But I guess that it is there the beauty lies. In the fact that you actually don’t have to pick up any epithets or labels if you don’t want to. That you are free to decide for yourself what defines you and that everything you do adds to who you are, for better or worse. That life goes up and down, but it always moves forward. Thus, even if I rather quickly once again got used to everything from writing the names of months and days of the week all in lower case letters, or not having to convert between pounds, dollars, miles and inches, there are some permanent changes in me (hopefully for the better) that are here to stay, even when I’m back on my home turf, and my year in California is something I’ll always have. Here are some of my personal favorite photos from the year.

Now I’m sat here in the backseat with a rainy Lappland (northern Sweden), covered in forest, rolls by outside the window, and I’m feeling immense gratitude. For having had the opportunity to do this year abroad, to have had an amazing time and learned so much,     and to be back home again with so many great experiences and memories. To everyone I’ve had the privilege to meet, learn from, laugh with and share impressions and thoughts with, in real life or through this blog, without superfluous embellishments, but all through honest and genuine: thank you.

Until next time,
Over and out…