Up up and away

So I have left Finland and now with some space between me and “Finland, Finland the country where I quite want to be” I can think about it, and what it means to me or meant to be.

A TICK BOX
I have always wanted to live overseas. England doesn’t count. Neither does Malaysia. So Finland ticked a box for providing a home for more than 12 months.

THE SETTLE DOWN
I moved to Finland to settle down, with the man I love and be supportive in his relationship with his young daughter. I had the mindset that for the next 15 years, Finland would be home and the focus of my life. There would be some real estate, the boxes would get sent over and unpacked and there would be a creation of home. Additionally, it was to be a place where the struggle of the single person was to be shared and halved.

The mindset had to change. But these feelings didn’t evaporate and I could sense wisps of these emotions still lingering as I got on the plane at Tampere.

SISU
Finland is survival, survival needs guts. Succeeding or staying in Finland represented a big triumph over adversity. Leaving therefore felt like failure.

GIRL POWER YEAH! yeah yeah?
Finland introduced me to the company of women folk. They were great, my towers of strength, my raison d’etre. I started to question why I hadn’t had so many female friends before. Then we all started acting female and I remembered why I don’t have a lot of female friends… Paranoid, territorial, self-doubting and emotional; that was us on a good day.

So now I am in England, and I can distance myself from the emotion; tick my box, and thereby turn my “failure” into success; and settle down for a wee while to clear out my debt and wait for fate to throw another exciting plan into my imagination. Bring it on…