Back home.

I get a kind of emotional hangover after significant trips, and doubly so after any trip to Estonia. It’s physically convenient and comfortable to be back home – my own bed, a sofa to my own taste, proper meals – but emotionally I feel empty and bereft.

I find myself wondering what I am even doing here. Why do I even live in Sweden? I fit in with my friends in Tartu on a level that nothing in Sweden can compare to. In Sweden, I feel forever the outsider, looking in. I can be as fluent as anyone when it comes to the language, as informed as anyone when it comes to popular culture and current events, and still it doesn’t matter. On a very deep level, they are strangers. Or rather, I am one.

I wish I hadn’t been moved to Sweden. Or that I hadn’t integrated myself here so deeply. Moving back at this point would just make things worse.

I’m feeling it more than ever after the divorce. I used to at least have Eric as a strong anchor here. When that relationship ended, I lost more than the relationship itself.