People at home sometimes mistakenly romanticize my life. I've recently moved to Sweden with my Italian husband; until two months ago we lived in Italy. For some of my peeps back home in California, these destinations fuel their dreams.
But make no mistake: living in Italy or Sweden is by no means a really really long version of a vacation in Europe. And marriage to an Italian is not the plot of a steamy foreign film. My husband is a very human man (though his Italian accent and small mistakes in spoken English do often make me smile), and Sweden and Italy are countries rather like America - different in their own ways, of course, but life here still involves those familiar life-elements of struggle, frustration, boredom, and disappointment.
Recently a friend wrote to me, Oh, wow, you've moved to Sweden? You're so lucky! I've always wanted to go there! Maybe what she meant is that she herself is lucky that I have moved to Sweden, because now she knows a person in Sweden who can host her if she should find the opportunity and means to travel to her long-desired destination. But I am in the midst of (1) a confusing but requisite interaction in a foreign language with a new bureaucratic system, (2) a job search despite an economic crisis in a country where I don't sufficiently speak the language and where my professional certifications from home are nearly meaningless, and (3) a struggle to create a social life from nothing amongst a society of introverts. So I must admit I scoff a bit at being told I'm lucky.
Now this is almost sounding negative, and that's not my intention. I
try to keep my cup half full, whether the cup holds coca-cola, espresso,
or fläderblomssaft. I'm sure that once I find my feet here it'll be easier for me to acquiesce to these accusations of luck. But for now I feel the need to set the record straight: migration ain't no vacation.
