Sunday February 14

Maja:

I am having a hard time realising that I am about to move to London. It is post Brexit, and during complete covid lockdown, so I don’t really have anything of the usual London to look forward to, but that is really not what this move is about. This move is about me getting some space for myself to actually relax and find myself. Anyone going through a rough part of a relationship knows the importance of just getting away for a bit if you’re not getting along. When a relationship becomes stressful, even during the times no arguments happen it can be stressful just being close to each other. 

I’ve really started to feel the need to be somewhere else for a while, and I am absolutely delighted with having found a place to go to. I’m happy with the friendship that has developed between me and Mark, and it feels like a good place for me to go to. I could just be there for a while, chill and let myself think about where to go next in life. 

Since I’ve decided to go ahead and move, there are preparations to make. I’ve spoken with my husband about it, and we’ve gotten to an OK place about it, so the next stage is to tell my family about it. We go there and I do that. They’re shocked and devastated with sadness. Over the next few days they will try more and more to persuade me not to go ahead with my plans, to just keep things as they are in Sweden. At times I will feel as though I’m demanded to justify my decisions and motivations, as though this was a negotiation with me having to stake my position then defend it. It is not. I am going, for my own sake. For no one else but me. But the discussions wear me down and I feel like I’m having to fight for the right to do things my way, in this moment, to live my own life on my own terms. In this, as the longest week of my life drags on, I start to feel more and more alone. Everyone around me is making me feel as though I have to struggle for every step I take. At times I will even feel as though I might not be able to head off on this short break that I need so much, if for no other reason than to make sense of where I am and to think of what could possibly be next. I certainly have no-one in Sweden I can speak to about all that. It really is a desperately sad and lonely time for me. How far are people ready to go to keep me here? Could they stop me from going? Would they? At times I’m really not so sure. Hints are certainly dropped.  When they are, they land like lead in my stomach. Oh this long long week feels like it will never end.

Mark:

In a chat today, as we’re going through the practicalities, which has become something of a watchword,  Maja suddenly remembers my experiences and says, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot. You also did the sudden London move thing. You’re like the ultimate Londoner for me.’ Not entirely sure about that, but yes, I see where she’s coming from. Now she mentions it, yes, I did do it in similar fashion in my dash from Madrid, but also in a much less secure way and with a pretty damn nasty landing too once the whole thing had crashed and burned on me. That whole homeless period with nothing but a corner of a friend’s room to call (extremely loosely) my own, no job, dwindling savings. If you can even call what I had savings. So yeah. I guess I do know what I’m talking about. But then, as she rightly points out, as much as she’s coming into a little more of a secure situation than I, ahem, enjoyed, I didn’t have Covid and lockdown London to contend with, so different challenges for different times. But security? She has the whole Brexit thing going on too as it’s not like she can come over here and start looking for a job if needed, but that’s a later issue. She has far greater priorities to think about than that like now, as she says, ‘I’m not usually a runner. But when I get there, I wanna run a little bit. Just from the joy of freedom.’ Yep. I think that’s about where it is right now.

Oh, but London walks. That’s really something to think about once she’s able to get out and about again and we talk about my own experience of that in the early days of Lockdown when I took my daily exercise allowance to go and see an iconically empty central London. If not quite as extreme, it’s still a little bit like that so that’s definitely something we can get out and see when the time comes.

So yes, we also have quite a bit to talk about, or rather she does, and I listen and pass a comment now and then. I was supposed to have rehearsal with Sarah today but that’s been put off again so when she asks I say that yes, I am free. The conclusion of today, at least on her domestic front, is that things have stopped burning so much and a kind of politeness has descended. Things certainly feel a little calmer. She’s also started to think in terms of a shorter visit. Maybe a timeframe of something like two months.