The Space In-Between:

On Being an Immigrant by Choice

There is something weird about being an immigrant by choice. Looking back, the pattern started almost three decades ago. In 1998, when I was 20 years old, my boyfriend (now my husband) and I decided to move to England. Sweden had joined the EU just three years prior, so we packed one suitcase each and got ready to go. At our local airport, my dad hugged me and said, "See you in a week!" We had bought a budget travel package that included a one-week hotel stay, back when boarding passes were still mailed to your house in the post. Freddie was heading to the University of Westminster, and I had landed a job as a barmaid near Liverpool Street. When my dad said that, I got so mad that I cried on the entire 50-minute flight to Stockholm.

When we arrived at Gatwick and the tour guide gathered everyone for the bus to the hotel, I asked Freddie for his return ticket. He handed it over, and I tore both of ours to pieces right then and there. I handed the scraps to the bewildered tour guide and said, "We won't be needing these." We ended up staying in London for close to six years before moving back home to Sweden, where we had two amazing kids.

Then in 2008, under much more "stable" adult conditions, we moved to the US as expats.

We settled in Evanston, right outside Chicago. For the first six weeks, all of our belongings were stuck in transit in Canada, so we laid towels out on the floor for the kids to sit on while they watched TV before bed. It was wild, but we made it work.

Then came the visa rollercoaster. We initially had a one-year visa with an extension pending. During the summer, while the lawyers were working on the paperwork, we went back home to Sweden and then spent a week visiting friends in France. That was when the letter arrived: our visa extension was declined. We panicked but that is a story for another day, though thankfully I am a full US citizen now!

We ended up living in the Chicago suburbs for eight years, and it is a city I hold so close to my heart. I love the people, the lake, the architecture, and the food. But eventually we got tired of the cold, so in 2016 we headed west and landed in Encinitas.

I honestly didn't think there were that many cultural differences between the US and Sweden until I moved here, let alone the cultural shifts within America itself as we moved from the Midwest to California. I am not really sure people understand it either unless you have traveled and lived it.

For those who know, we call it living in between.

After over 18 years in the US, I am no longer just a "Swede." I am the one who lives in America when I go "home" to Sweden, and when I am here, I am "the Swede". Marked by a different accent and maybe a slightly different viewpoint on things. You exist in this unique middle space, deeply rooted in both places. You belong to both places, and somehow not completely to either one.

Which brings me to today, and a truly wild feeling.

Today is the first day in my entire life that I am in the country where I live, not a country I am visiting, with zero family inside its borders.

My daughter decided to go back to Sweden last year for university, returning to the country where she was born and left when she was just a year and a half old. My son got a contract to coach junior hockey in Alberta, Canada, living out his dream. My husband is currently away on an international business trip.

It is such an uncanny feeling. I have a full life here, people I love, work I care about, places that feel familiar. And still, the quiet in the house feels different tonight.

Keep in mind, I am completely safe. I am going to work tomorrow, and I have a warm roof over my head. But as I sit here in the quiet, I am feeling literally all the feelings at once.

I am unbelievably proud of my kids. I miss them. I also feel this strange little sense of freedom, which catches me off guard. I don’t really know what to do with all of those feelings at once.

I had a call with my mom this week where she confessed that when I left for London as her youngest, she was literally drawing on the walls, couldn't stand being inside the quiet house, and would just go on long drives to clear her head. It is funny how almost 30 years later, across different oceans and generations, we end up sharing the exact same experience.

Twenty-eight years ago, I tore up those airplane tickets at Gatwick because I wanted to explore the world. We raised our kids across borders, showing them that the world is big, reachable, and full of possibilities. Now, my daughter is back where her story started, and my son is chasing his dream in the Canadian snow. They inherited that same restless, brave spirit.

Living in between means sitting in a quiet house in California with a full, messy heart. Holding immense pride right alongside the longing, the freedom, and the absolute weirdness of it all.

I might be the only one in this house tonight, but the life we built across continents is everywhere.

Unbecoming the Teacher.

I walked into a yoga class where nobody knew my name, nobody knew I teach, and nobody expected anything from me. I didn't realize how much I needed that.

Teaching in the wellness space is both a blessing and a strange kind of pressure. I've had students tell me years later that showing up to my classes kept them sane, anchored, sober, or alive during life events I knew absolutely nothing about at the time.

But there is another side to it too.

People often meet me as the teacher, the one with the plan. The one talking about breath, steadiness, nervous system regulation, strength, acceptance, and all the things we are supposed to remember when life gets hard.

And the truth is, I don't always live it perfectly.

My life can be pretty messy. I get overwhelmed. I second guess myself. Some days, if I'm completely honest, I feel like a fake.

Imposter syndrome is real when you spend your days teaching people tools you know work, while also knowing you don't always use them when you need them most.

The thing is, I know this stuff works. I live it every day. But knowing something and actually doing it when your life is a mess are two different things.

Maybe that's especially true right now because I'm 48 and my kids just moved out. Being a mom was a big part of my life for twenty years. Now that's changing, and I'm trying to figure out who I am when that's not the main thing anymore. There is freedom in it. There is also fear.

We recently moved from the coast. My entire time in California, I've lived and taught around Encinitas and Carlsbad, but now I live inland in Escondido. New town. Zero street credit.

So this weekend, I finally decided to step into a local spot downtown, a small studio.

And I get there and the teacher asked if I'd done yoga before.

Personally, I have a complicated relationship with that question.

Years ago, when I first moved to California, I was so excited to start practicing at the Ashtanga Yoga Center. When I walked in, the person sitting at the front desk was cold. She looked me up and down and bluntly asked, "Have you done yoga before?"

I ended up walking right back out the door.

It wasn't really the question itself. Teachers sometimes need to know about experience, especially in a class involving inversions. It was the feeling behind it. Like I needed to prove something before I had even put my mat down.

This time, at the small studio, I simply said yes.

I didn't tell her I teach. I just said yes and left it at that.

And honestly, that felt good.

When I went upstairs, the other students introduced themselves by name. They were warm and welcoming, but let's be real, stepping into a brand new room as the new person is always a little intimidating.

When I'm on the teaching end, I'm an extrovert. Put me at the front of a room and I'm completely fine. Put me on a mat in a place where I don't know anyone, and suddenly I become deeply introverted especially when the practice starts.

It doesn't matter how many years I've practiced or taught. Walking into a new studio with a teacher who has their own style means you are going to feel clueless for a minute. Their language is different, their sequence is different, their timing is different. You can know yoga well and still need time to understand how that particular teacher moves and communicates.

I tell my students this all the time. When you walk into a class with a new teacher, give it a minute to understand how they teach. Being on the student side of it reminded me how it feels when you don't know what's coming next.

As the class moved through inversion fundamentals, I started to settle in. I wasn't responsible for the class. I wasn't watching everyone else, thinking about pacing, music, transitions, or whether somebody looked uncomfortable. I didn't have to decide what came next or have the right words ready.

I could just practice.

And I think that was the part I needed most.

I spend a lot of my life in roles where I am expected to know what I'm doing. Teacher. Coach. Mom. The one with the plan. But right now, in a lot of ways, I don't have the plan. I'm trying to figure out what I want my work to look like, what I want this next part of my life to feel like, and who I am when my kids don't need me in the same way anymore.

Maybe that is why it felt so good to walk into a room where nobody knew anything about me. There was nothing to explain and nothing to live up to. For that hour and a half, I could just be there without all the usual roles attached.

No reputation. No answers to give. Just an anonymous student on a mat.