Moving Day (Finland Day 2.0)

Yesterday was Finland Day for our family, and it just so happens that we are celebrating it by packing up and moving. But not across the world, country, or even across town - just a couple of neighborhoods over. I loved our small apartment and its central location with all my heart, but for the greater good, we have relocated to a slightly bigger townhome a little farther out of the center. I cried a little the day we signed the papers, but I am consoled by the fact that our new place has a forest for a backyard. And the kids are already running around with hobby horses back there. FINNISHIZATION COMPLETE.

It has been almost therapeutic for me to take apart the furniture and pack up the belongings that I assembled and unpacked all on my own two years ago. It was like working back through time, and therefore my feelings: when I put this bunk bed together, it was late at night and I needed some sound and Americana in the background so I turned on Far and Away on my laptop. When I put this couch together, it was because I needed a place to sit. As much difficulty as Jeremy and I are having taking apart this bed, two years ago I did it by myself. Two years ago, there was all this furniture put together and no family here yet to enjoy it; now it's sitting in shambles, waiting to be moved, while all five of us awkwardly maneuvers around it.

Coming here on my own two years ago (for two weeks before Jeremy and the kids showed up) to a completely empty home and a brand new job and language and culture and country was the very hardest thing I have ever done. I will always be bizarrely grateful to the inanimate being that is that first small apartment for welcoming us to our new home and letting us live there and figure things out for a couple of years, before launching us to bigger (by 14 square meters!) and better (forest!) things.