A question i get a lot from friends and family about my unstable lifestyle. “Do you enjoy it?” “Is it fun or is it difficult?” I’m going to answer these in a bit, but first, let me tell you a short background story.
Even though I grew up in Sweden and lived there for over 22 years, I always wanted to explore the world. I always said the same sentence over and over again, which is: “If I ever get married, I want to move abroad and leave Sweden behind”. The entire world seemed much more interesting and I never liked the cold winters in Scandinavia. My plan was not to live an unstable lifestyle (I didn’t even know what it was), it was simply to live outside of Sweden. Just that.
So, God heard my prayers and I got married to a German man. And since my dream was to leave Sweden, we decided to live in Germany together. However, we had no idea about how our life would turn out. We had plans, but God had others. Shortly after moving in together in Germany, my husband applied for a new job. He went for an interview, got the job and that’s when we started to live our unstable lifestyle.
So as you can read, it was not planned at all.
Now before I tell you more about our unstable lifestyle and answer all the questions I mentioned at the beginning. I need to tell you this.
Moving to Germany was exciting and fun. We rented an apartment. Painted all the rooms. Bought the interior we wanted and we were so excited to make memories at our new home.
But then, my husband started to travel a lot for work and I was all alone in that apartment. I had no friends, no family and I knew no one. As the social butterfly that I am, I got depressed. Very depressed. I cried a lot, missed my family a lot and worst of all, I had literally nothing to do. I had no children to take care of. The apartment was always clean since I had nothing else to do, and besides, I spent a lot of time there alone and I’m very organized as a person in comparison to my husband 😅 I didn’t know the language as well, so looking for a job was not even on the list.
You may think to yourself, but isn’t that the perfect opportunity to do everything on your mind? To work on your dreams and make them come true? Do all of your hobbies without having a job to go to while living at your own place? The answer is yes of course! And I tried, I really did. But I had no motivation to do anything. My body was tired of doing nothing. Just thinking about doing the laundry made me tired and I went back to sleep for hours and hours.
However, I started learning german at a private school and I started to get to know people. I made friends and we visited each other every now and then. That dampened my depression a bit. but it was still there.
It was still there when we moved to The Netherlands later. It was still there when we moved back to Sweden for a short time and then to Denmark. And it’s still here. The depression. Why though? Am I not happy to travel from a country to another? To see different cultures and try out new food?
I’m grateful of course, for everything in life. And yes, it’s very fun to move around and I’m not going to lie, I still get excited every time my husband mentions a new project in Turkey or in Australia. I’m like let’s go! It’s very fun to explore new countries. Having the opportunity to live at different places and accommodations. Learning more about different cultures, food, traditions and lifestyles. Meeting new interesting people. Moving around without having any big responsibilities. Feeling free to do whatever I want to whenever I want to.
However, living an unstable lifestyle is hard too. Especially when it’s not exactly how you planned to live your life. Especially when you don’t know for how long you are staying. And even if there is a plan, the plan changes all the time. It’s always about moving in or out a couple of months earlier or later than planned. And especially if you have a lot of dreams and plans but can’t fulfill them because of constantly moving around. It’s hard to start over and over again. To try to adapt and to find a routine. Do some research about the new countries laws and rules. Trying to find out what documents you need. Feeling like an immigrant all the time. To learn a new language and get a job. The process is more complicated than just to pack your bag and leave.
For me, nothing feels like home anymore. I’m tired of living at places that are not mine. I’m tired of having things permanent because “we are moving soon again anyway so we don’t need to buy this and that now”. I want to decorate my own place. Use my own porcelain. Buy my own furnitures. Clean my own bathroom. Organize my own stuff the way I want to. Do all the things on my bucket list while feeling stable. I want a place that feels like home. A place I look forward to get back to after a long day at work. A stable life and place so I can focus on other things rather than thinking: “Where are we going next?”
So yes, it’s both fun and difficult to live an unstable lifestyle. Some days I enjoy it more than others. Some days the depression hits harder than other days and I ask myself: “When will this journey stop and how did I even get into all of this”. Sometimes I feel lika I’ve wasted 3 years of my life moving around when we could already have are own place by now. And just that gives me the worst anxiety ever.
BUT as I said earlier. I’m grateful for everything. And I do believe that there is a meaning to everything. I’ve learned a lot of things about my self during this journey. I’ve developed new skills and I’ve got new experiences and perspectives of things in life. I know that some people think that I’m living life! Moving from a country to another without having any responsibilities. Doing what I want and what I feel for. It sounds fun doesn’t it? Well, I’ve been told that a lot. But it’s not all glitter and glamour, just like everything in life. There is always two sides of a story, and this is my honest story about what it really feels like to live an unstable lifestyle.