“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
– Rumi
One of the greatest myths I bought into before moving to Norway was that by moving to a new country, I would automatically subsume all that the country had to offer. Somehow, through books read, through the internet, I believed that the Norwegian life would just seep into me, like rain into dry earth. I envisioned my holidays at hytte’s, the vacation cabins that all proper Norwegians seem to own at least one of, in the mountains or along the sea. I envisaged myself leaving my fancy 8-4 office job each winter’s day and immediately heading to the forest to cross-country ski, joining the rest of the Swix Gear clad skiers crowding the metros. I saw myself jetting off to a different foreign city each weekend- Edinburgh, Florence, Madrid, Salzburg, Budapest- capitalizing on the ridiculously cheap flights that central Europe offered up. But most of all, I saw myself carefree. No longer the anxious, overwhelmed mess I so often felt myself after each workday in a high-stress field, demanding consistent, uncompensated overtime. I would be in Norway now, the land of universal healthcare, the land of prime work/life balance. What could possibly stress me out?
I have to chuckle with myself when I think back on these visions, saying lovingly as to a child, “You sweet, naive soul…” It’s not that Norway doesn’t have its advantages, and it’s not to say that none of these will ever happen. It’s just not exactly a reality right now. There will come a day when flight prices have gone back down and travel becomes easier, when skiing becomes fun rather than a chore. I’m not quite sure, though, how I expected the hytte. My partner is Swedish and neither him or his family own one. I’m a dreamer at heart.
But oh… The stress. What is the old adage? Wherever you go, there you are? Well here I am. In carefree Norway. With all the stress still clinging on like barnacles to a ship.
I could give a hundred highly legitimate reasons why I feel as stressed and overwhelmed as I so often do here each day. These reasons allow for validation and solace. But a lot of it is just me. My high sensitivity, my extreme perfectionism, my excessive dreaming that heightens my expectations to unrealistic levels. My high-functioning anxiety has always allowed me to get things done. In the States, stress is bred into us. The “American Dream” prescribes that if someone works hard, good things will come. Success is defined as a burgeoning career, financial wealth, quantifiable results.
I am no stranger to working hard. It’s something I’ve always taken great pride in. Laziness makes my blood boil, and I’ve never been one to take the easy route. But this illusive American Dream is in many cases a sham, another myth ascribed to us from birth. And left in its wake is the only-to-be-expected but still ever-surprising consequence of a complete inability to relax.
Back when I was still using Facebook consistently, I remember coming across a post that said something to the effect of, “Sitting and relaxing while worrying about all the things that need to be done is NOT relaxing.” This struck me. It was perfectly describing me, every day. I could give myself all the breaks in the world, practice all the supposed self-care, and still the stress would be there. Why? Because in order to feel successful, to feel worthy, to feel that I embody a place of value in this world, I have to be doing, creating, giving. I know I did not adopt this frame of thinking on my own, and I know I am not unique in feeling so. American culture teaches it over and over again from the time we are small children. Success is working hard. Doing. Accomplishing. Achieving. And having results to show for it.
My partner has a core trait that both amazes me and infuriates me simultaneously. He can come home from work, pour himself a glass of wine, and sit on the couch entirely carefree with his laptop or a book and just let go. It does not matter if there is laundry to be done, if there are dishes to be unloaded, if our joint to-do list is five kilometers long. He can simply relax. What a blessing that must be. I haven’t entirely decided if it’s a Swedish thing or just a man thing, though I suspect it is a little of both. The Swedes practice a concept of Lagom, or the art of “good enough”, a concept that always struck me as entirely un-American. This is not to say he never works hard or pulls his weight with housework. He absolutely does, and there is many an evening that he has worked overtime at his job until 7, 8, 9 o’clock at night. But when his work is complete, he can close it up, leave work at work, and shut himself down to rest.
I, however, have not mastered this art, so long being expected to check and respond to emails after work hours, while on vacations. It’s something I both resent and yet feel compelled to do. I also suspect I am still embodying the post-Covid brain. Writer Katherine May speaks of this state so refreshingly and succinctly in her new book, “Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age”, describing it as a “pandemic hangover”.** My brain is both sluggish and a whirlwind. I have too much I want to do but too little energy to do it. I allow myself ample time to relax, yet very seldom find myself relaxing.
I’ve self-proclaimed 2023 as the year I come back to myself. I’ve let far too many things fall to the wayside over these last years, things I have always claimed to be core aspects of myself, yet found myself rarely or never doing. Adopting a regular yoga practice once again, writing more, escaping into nature on a regular basis, learning more about things that light my inner fire- healing trauma, massage, protecting the sea. It’s been all too easy to make excuses, once again hearing those nasty Americanisms reverberating in my brain. “Your writing isn’t legitimate if it isn’t earning money.” “You can’t just practice yoga or escape to the forest when there’s so much work left to be done!”
I’m getting better at prioritizing these things that make me feel alive. I’m getting better at ignoring the voices in my head that tell me I’m not good enough, not successful enough, that all my friends could be living my life better than me if they were in my shoes. These voices prove to be depleting, debilitating, and they pull me further and further away from my goals and dreams. But as with accomplishing any aspiration, with shifting any mindset, these things take time. The brain must be re-trained, habits must be unlearned. And so in the meantime, I’m also learning to lean into it.
The truth is that lately even the smallest tasks can feel monumental. Call it depression, call it wintertime, call it an over-stressed brain, I feel I’m climbing mountains each day without even leaving my apartment. And so, I’ve begun celebrating each and every accomplishment as if I have, in fact, scaled a precipice. I have celebrations inside my head when I take myself to the swimming hall, I reward myself with my favorite coffee when I’ve finished an application. The joy I felt last night after completing my first American tax return for foreign work abroad was insurmountable, a task I had been dreading for months. And yes, US citizens still have to pay taxes to the US while living and working abroad, and we are one of only two countries in the entire world required to do so.
If America has taught me that my success is based on achieving, I will be my own inner cheerleader for every email replied to, every phone call made, every appointment completed, every workout accomplished. I will celebrate myself as if I have achieved wonders, because in many ways, I have. I celebrate my successes internally, taking care that no one dares to burst my bubbles. And one day, I’m choosing to believe this love and self-ceremony will bleed through regardless of what has been done. After all, as we have all learned far too well, fully relaxing is an accomplishment in and of itself. One more than worthy of a celebration.
**May, K. (2023). Enchantment: Awakening wonder in an anxious age. Riverhead Books.
A Mermaid Out of Water 