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.
