Comings and goings

I went to a good-bye brunch for my friend Deirdre this morning. She's moving to Philadelphia on Friday with her Swedish husband and 2 young kids after a semi-unwanted, 4-year-long pit stop in Sweden. Merel and Denis are also leaving (very bad news), moving back to the Netherlands some time between now and November, and Clare is heading to Seattle in December.

All these impending goodbyes have been contributing to a new perspective I've had about being in Sweden since returning from our trip to CA in July. Suddenly, with 10 months to go, it feels like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel ... and that light is not far off. There's just something about being under the 12-months-to-go mark. Gone is that sense of ramping up, of trying to meet as many people as possible to build a network of social and professional contacts. It's been replaced on one hand with the positive intentions of really wanting to enjoy what we have here and enjoying the fruits of our labors (and I don't mean the children, though of course they are enjoyable and the fruits of one type of labor). On the other hand, the single-mindedness of the first year has also been replaced with the annoying feeling of having one eye on our life here and one eye focused on ramping up a life in SF again. Luckily I have quite a bit of work at the moment to keep me grounded on the here and now ... and hopefully pay for some fun trips in the coming months.