I know, I know!
First blog: Finn’s are amazing!
Second blog: Saunas are a revelation!
Third blog: Boom! Buckle up – sh1t just got real!
But seriously – don’t go reaching for the Chardonnay just yet. It sounds ominous – but it’s really not that bad. I promise.
***
Christmas 2015 – my partner (hereby forward to be referred to as ‘Finn’) has not long moved in with me in my East London home and we’re shopping in Waitrose (I know, I know – name-dropper) and I find him in the cheese aisle.
Me: ‘What are you looking for honey?’
Finn: ‘Cheese’
Me: ‘…..’
Finn: ‘Normal cheese. Like, just regular cheese.’
Me: *Instantly becoming a cheese aficionado* ‘Oh like cheddar? It’s just here – just go for a number 1 or 2 – that’s pretty plain’
Finn: ‘No. Not cheddar – not strong cheese. Boring cheese.’
Me: ‘It doesn’t get much more boring that number 1 cheddar honey…’
Finn: *Increasingly agitated* ‘No. Not cheddar. Boring. Like. Just plain, boring cheese…’
Me: ‘Ummm – like edam – perhaps?’ *Picks up Edam for visual purposes*
Finn: *On the verge of a complete meltdown* ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. It’s too busy in here – let’s just leave!’
A dairy-shaped monster had been unleashed. Who was this person? How could someone so calm and unwavering throw his toys out of the pram in the dairy aisle at Waitrose? Tesco I could understand, but Waitrose? It’s so calm and horrifyingly middle class.
Obviously, it wasn’t the cheese he was upset about – he was searching for home. Cheese and mustard and Finncrisp and gherkins. A staple of the Finnish diet. (And something I have now also become very accustomed to myself much to his delight…)
I will return to this story.
***
Today is 10th October 2017 – the weather has taken a turn for the worse in Helsinki and it’s been raining for 3 solid days. Summer is such a distant a memory I’m beginning to question whether it really happened or whether, in fact, I just got really drunk one particularly sunny evening and it was so amazing my mind just tricked me into thinking it went on for weeks.
This morning at 6.30am I tip-toed through the house getting ready like an under-dressed Ninja, kissed the sleeping Finn goodbye (the fact I resisted the urge to stick a wet finger in his ear is, quite frankly, reason enough to ask me to marry him…) and caught the tram into the city to teach a 7.30am pilates class full of lovely, friendly clients.
This made me happy.
Then, I grabbed a coffee from downstairs and went for a long swim in the heated outdoor pool that overlooks the ocean whilst the grey clouds overhead continued to moan and cry down on Helsinki, resulting in the pool being basically empty.
Naturally I took a sauna afterwards. This also made me happy.
And now – I’m sitting in one of my favourite restaurants (shout out to the Pompier crew in Espa and Albertinkatu) eating a bottomless lunch buffet of wonderfully fresh salads and a daily soup so incredible that myself and my partner have discussed the logistics of kidnapping the chefs and keeping them at home to start a personal soup kitchen.
(I will make sure to really enjoy this meal, as it may potentially be the last time I ever eat at Pompier…)
Later today, I’ll take a 40 minute stroll through the city to get home and do a little housework, then maybe take a nap or bake something before leaving again around 5pm to teach 2 more classes. Then I’ll return home around 8pm to spend the evening with my partner.
This is the latest I work on any day, and I only work this late once a week. Most evenings I’m in the house by 6/7pm. I earn as much now teaching 2-3 classes a day as I did with an 8 hour-a-day (10 hours a day in London time) full time pilates teaching job in the UK.
This was one of the many reasons I wanted to leave London.
I am smiling as I hear my friends and families voices in my head commenting whilst reading this:
‘Oooo – alright for some!’
‘What a life!’
‘I’d KILL for a day like that!’
‘It’ll ALL change when you have kids you know!’
Yes. It is wonderful. And yes, I do know how lucky I am, because I’ve been hustling my British butt off since I got here to try and create this way of life, with a tremendous amount of support given to me courtesy of the Finn since the moment we skidded onto the tarmac last December.
But that does not mean life is easy, and it has definitely not always been this way.
Cut back to July – just 3 months ago. I’m standing in Helsinki airport, crying with such ferocity passers by could be forgiven for thinking my partner had either just proposed to me or just told me he was leaving me for someone else. Both were legitimately plausible based on my explosive and untranslatable outbursts.
The truth was I had just had my first, major attack of deep, dark homesickness. It had seemingly come out of nowhere, but in truth it had been building for some time and I had just been blissfully unaware of it. We were heading for Lapland to my partners family home, the cottage that I fell deeply in love with the first time I ever saw it sparkling in the snow like a little ginger bread house in a fairy tale.
Whilst there we would see his parents, whom I equally adore. They don’t really speak English, I don’t really speak Finnish – but somewhere in the middle we meet through a series of hand gestures, laughter, barnyard-esqe noises and a lot of hugging. The first time I ever went to their home, my poor partner somehow got wedged in between me and his Mother as we sunk a bottle of red wine and – much like the babel fish in ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ – he acted as a live, word-for-word interpreter.
These are the reasons I resist the urge to stick a wet finger in his ear at 6.30 in the morning.
Going back to the airport hysteria, it felt like what can only be described as constant waves of emotions:
‘I don’t want to go to Lapland – I want to go to London’ (I didn’t know where I wanted to go)
‘Argh – I hate London – I don’t want to go there. I just want to be alone’ (I didn’t want to be alone)
‘No it’s OK let’s go to Lapland – I love it there’ (I really do)
To the Finn: ‘I want to go to London but I don’t want to be away from you for Summer’ (Sounds clingy I know – but don’t judge me – I was at the end of a very emotional tether and I was hungry)
Also to the Finn: ‘No! You can’t sacrifice your holiday in Lapland with your family and friends and change our flights just to come to London and see my family and friends – that’s crazy!’ (Interesting use of the word crazy from me as I flung myself around the airport lobby like an out-of-control auditionee for a Spanish telenovela)
Eventually, after the most award-winning amount of patience from my partner (I was being tame when I made the telenovela comparison) and talking our way deeper into the root of the problem, it turned out that what I was feeling was lonely and guilty.
Lonely due to all the days I had spent over the past 6 months on my own, in the house with no reason to get up and leave. Or, wandering around the city trying to fill my day with something meaningful and worthwhile. Trying to motivate yourself to do something fun or productive (write a blog, teach yourself the ukulele that your partner brought you almost 2 years ago and you still only know the one song, create a personal website) becomes really quite difficult when you have no sense of urgency or deadline and your spare time feels almost limitless.
The sense of loneliness you only feel as a foreigner when you find yourself standing in the cold meats section of your local supermarket a few months prior to the airport incident looking for chicken breasts and thighs to roast for a simple dinner with friends.
Me: ‘Where’s the chicken thighs?’
Finn: ‘Here’ *Points for clarity*
Me: ‘No – just plain chicken thighs, skin on – no crap on them’
Finn: ‘What crap?’
Me: ‘Sauce – I don’t want sauce. I just want plain chicken thighs and breasts on the bone!’
Finn: *Nervously* ‘I don’t think they really do that in Finland’
Me: *Holding him personally accountable for the entire Finnish poultry industry* ‘What? How is that possible?!’
Cue an actual supermarket meltdown (with tears) and a complete realisation and deep comprehension of the ‘Waitrose cheese incident’ 18 months prior. Understanding hugs are exchanged. I love him more in that moment than I’ve ever loved anyone. I immediately hate chicken and in retrospect think this may be responsible for leading me down my eventual path to vegetarianism just a few weeks later.
Ahhhhhh – so that’s why she opened with the weird cheese story!
Yes, readers, yes it is. *smiles smugly*
Going back to my airport epiphany, I realise that this sense of ‘freedom’ and ‘alone time’ sounds absolutely blissful – but trust me – it is only attractive when it feels like a reward. When it becomes your everyday life, and all of your friends (and your partner) are only available during the evening or the weekend suddenly it’s not so attractive. Eating out alone (something I adored doing in London) actually can get lonely sometimes. The cinema is often more enjoyable when in company. These shared experiences are what make us bond as humans.
I remember wondering what my sense of purpose was and craving the feeling of importance I had felt in London (easily and casually forgetting being so ‘busy and important’ in London that I had driven myself into 9 weeks off work and an anxiety disorder just a few years prior to moving to Helsinki.)
The guilt I was harbouring was due to being away from my friends and family all Summer, and I was only just realising that fact standing in the airport as my Summer holidays were coming to an end. Not cuddling new babies that had been born. Not meeting other halves of new relationships that had begun. Not comforting friends for whom relationships had ended. Not seeing my best friend and my Godson as much as I want (which is every day ideally – he’s honestly one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Once, when I ask him to pick out a bedtime story he came back with a dictionary, just to really squeeze the most out of the situation.)
I know I said at the beginning of this to not reach for the Chardonnay – and as I imagine your hand is already frantically reaching for the corkscrew, let me just stop you.
And Mom – stop checking out one-way ticket prices to London from Helsinki.
This is where it gets better.
You see – this was my lowest point. But what was that lowest point, really?
It was me realising I loved my career choice SO much that I wanted to do it more often and fill my days with even more teaching and even more learning. Which is exactly what I’m doing now. I’m teaching more than ever in Helsinki. My days are nearly always busy in the morning teaching a class or private group, with a lovely gap for lunch and a workout (preferably the other way round to limit the chances of seeing my lunch again midway through a deadlift) before one or two afternoon classes to round off the day. On top of that, I’m about to embark on an apprenticeship programme with an incredible teacher here in Helsinki to finally learn deep-rooted classical Pilates repertoire – something I never had time (or funds) for in London.
It was also me realising that I had so many incredible friends and family back in the UK that I would need to arrange to see them more often in order to fill up my ’emotional battery’. And although I only go home every few months – these people do not forget me just as I do not forget them. They miss me just as I miss them. Those days spent back in the UK are filled with so much fun and so little sleep that coming back home to Helsinki is secretly a blessing….
It was also me realising that I love the Finn’s family and his his Lapland roots – and it makes me happy and calm to be in such a peaceful place. I love drinking wine with his Mom almost as much as with my own Mom, and I like letting her shoo me out of the kitchen when I try to help her cook because it makes it feel like home. I also get great enjoyment out of trying to convince his Dad to eat some salad every now and again, and have taken to corresponding with his brother solely through the use of ‘the bird’ – much to the amusement of me and his fiance.
Has the move been difficult? Hell yes.
Do I regret it? Hell no. Despite this blog, the good has so far well outweighed the bad and it continues to go that way.
But the one thing I have learned?
If you’re ever in Waitrose and see someone crying in the dairy aisle – don’t judge. Maybe just ask if they need some help.