Setting Forth

Hello internet!

My name is Joana and I'm from Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal. For those of you who might not know a lot about it, Portugal is a small and very sunny country in Western Europe.

I lived in the same street, house and city for my entire life! So it's safe to say it is very overwhelming to find myself living...in the north of Sweden right now! But how did this happen? What brought me to this cold little corner of the world? Well, let me start from the beginning...

To tell this tale, we have to go back to my high school years, when I started talking to a swedish guy on the internet, who was really funny, smart and sweet. We quickly became friends and had great talks about the movies we loved, but also shared things about our lives and what made us into who we were. Time passed and I entered a local university to study Psychology, which if you don't know (because why would you?), is a degree that requires you to take a bachelor (3 years) and a masters (2 additional years). At the end of it all, I'm saddened to announce that...you can't be a psychologist yet, not just yet! You have to do a 12 month paid internship and only then (only then, mind you) you get to call yourself a licensed psychologist! Hurray!

Now I gave you this description to paint a picture of the journey I had ahead of me, of at least 5 to 6 years working towards my goal and what I felt passionate about. Things were going well, but during my first year of studies (2013), something happened. I fell in love. And yes, you've guessed it: with the swedish boy! He came to visit me during the spring of that year and we started dating. We knew it was going to be difficult - I was a student with few means and he was about to start working full-time. We lived completely different lives and were separated by at least 4000 kilometers. But what we felt for each other was beautiful and more real than I could ever had imagined for my life. So despite all the hardships and the boundaries, we decided to go for it. A long distance relationship that was bound to last for at least five years (if we were lucky, I guess). Looking back on it, I think we were so blinded by love, we naively thought of those five years like a stepping stone we had to conquer before our life together could begin. Like it was guaranteed that we would outlast those five years and just keep going because we liked each other too much to let the long distance separate us. I smile at that thought now... I guess I never really realized that that was my life, our lives already happening and it never crossed my mind that just like that, the first five years of our relationship would come and go in what feels like an instant. Granted, there were a lot of ups and downs on the way. It was by far the hardest thing I've ever done, so mentally and emotionally draining that every time I had to go home from my stay in Sweden, I thought to myself "I can't do it, this time I'm actually going to break". But I never did. Not entirely.

I write this today in February of 2019. Next month it'll be our 6th year anniversary. We made it (so far). We survived the distance, all the heartbreaking goodbyes at the airport, the one hour difference that sometimes felt like an eternity due to our different lifestyles...The main reason why I came to Sweden was to be with him. This year dawned as the year we could finally be together every day and not worry about the return ticket home. But I didn't completely change my life just because of that. I also came here because ever since I can remember, I always wished to live somewhere else, away from Portugal. To discover new realities, new cultures and new people. For some reason, I never imagined myself living there "forever"; I've been very aware that I was going to end up somewhere else. I just never guessed it would be here...There are also a lot of things I love and admire about Sweden, things that I've been able to discover and explore in my previous six trips here. The north is particularly breathtaking, with landscapes of endless green grass and the midnight sun during the summer and the fields of fluffy white snow in the winter.

I could've stayed in Lisbon, where I already knew the language, had a job and lived with my family (rent free). I was also close to my friends and I could go anywhere I wanted to because I knew the city well and all I had to do was hop on a bus. But I didn't want to choose the safest, easiest route - I wanted to taste the flavor of freedom that comes with exploring uncharted territory. I didn't want to stay where everything felt familiar and expected. I wanted a change and to be honest, I could use with an adventure. So, this is the path that led us to the present and to the creation of this blog. Here I will tell you all about my experiences living in Sweden - the good, the bad and the...well there's not much ugly around here, as the scenery is so beautiful. So let's swap that for...the cold! If there's anyone out there reading my little tale, I'd love to hear about any questions you might have in the comments below and I will try my best to answer them!

We're setting forth.