Warning: more change ahead

I’m stepping into change.

Just when you think you’ve landed, you’re settling in, gotten into your routines, unpacked a few more shipping boxes, comes change. Major change, again.

Unasked for. Not requested. Life interrupted. At the exact time when you thought you could start to breathe out, something happens and instead, your breath is taken away.

What a thing life is. Always in motion. Making you adapt at its whim. “Never a dull moment” – I would love a dull moment.

A bit over two weeks ago, I lost my job. I lost my job under pretty terrible circumstances. I lost my job because my boss – whom I very much admire and love working for – has found out that his one remaining kidney now has five aggressive cancers festering away and he needs to have an urgent high-risk operation. The best-case scenario involves 5-6 months of bed rest where he may not be able to talk.

He is still recovering from a brain operation last September where they removed two tumors. Needless to say, his way of life is about to be impacted again and this has meant that he has to let me go. I pretty well just work with him every day, so if I don’t have him to work with, I have no work.

Kitchen garden going great. May have to start selling sage.

There are so many elements of sadness in me. My lovely boss – who allowed me to keep my job and move to Sweden, even though it meant he would only get to actually see me once a year – who I speak to for hours every day and who is inspiring to work with – will once again have to endure more adversity.

And I’ve lost my last connection to Australia. Apart from my mother, my sister/sister-in-law, 3 brothers, nephews/nieces/cousins/aunties, my bonus mum Krystyna and all my friends which I’ve had for over 3 decades. Well apart from all that, I’ve lost my last connection to Australia and my Medicare card.

With a slap in the face, I’ve had to face the reality that I really am living in Sweden and I need to get a job in my own time zone.

I’m now a job seeker in a country where I can only apply for 5% of the jobs on offer. Jobs in English. Sure, I can speak Swedish, but it’s a version of Swedish that is not recognised by the EU, nor by the greater Swedish population.

Our blackberries are undeterred by my black mood. Lucky.

My written Swedish is so poor that when I text in Swedish, my phone cannot identify what I am trying to say. It can’t work out any autofills/auto corrects because I’m so far off. My iPhone has better Swedish than I do.

Considering I work predominately as a writer, it’s best that I stick to English I believe.

All hopes of beating the Swede in our competition have flown out the window. I’ve stopped shuffling, have not taken care of myself, have worked crazy hours hunched over my computer trying to get two major projects complete before I finish up. I rarely stop to eat lunch, I have let stress, stress me out to no end.

But it’s coming to an end. I’m going to get back on track.

I know I’m the lucky one in this scenario. All I have to do is find a job. I’ve got my health, the Swede, gorgeous girls. We have a beautiful home, in a beautiful village. In a village, where I can wield my power on the body corporate, in a beautiful part of the world.

And it’s autumn. My favourite time of year. A time of change.

Autumn in the village = joy.