Today, I departed on a plane from Malaysia to Sweden. It was my big move to move house. From the hot humid country of mine which I have been residing for the past 34 years of my life to the cold dry country of Sweden.
How did I convince myself to make such a courageous or bold move? My family experienced a huge tragedy where I lost the closest person in my life. I lost 3 family members in 2014. A part of me just died when she was taken away. Since then, I wanted to live my life before life is taken away from me. It has been hard to start life again but I made myself to stand up and do it. I do not want to live in regrets. I do not want to live in 'what-ifs'. I wanted to give this a try and not look back and asked myself - Why did I not try?
I did not go with a job. I went to my penpal. When I was 16 years old, I had 4 penpals - they were from UK, USA, South Africa and Sweden. I am still in contact with all of them. The idea of a penpal must sound foreign.
When I was 14, my first penpal was a girl from South Africa. We wrote letters to each other and I always look forward to getting her letters from the postman.
When I was 16, we got the Internet installed at home. I logged into a forum by the Netscape Navigator browsing site (this was before Internet Explorer). I posted my first entry to look for penpal because I wanted to make new friends. 3 persons replied - 2 girls from UK and USA and one guy from Sweden. We emailed each other. I met the US girl when I was 17 when she visited me in Malaysia. We travelled to China for the first time together in 2011. I met the English girl for the first time in her wedding in 2010.
When I was 31, I met the Swedish penpal for the first time. It was the family tragedy that brought us to meet for the first time. He drove from Sweden to Netherlands. Prior to that, we have been communicating frequently via Facebook Messenger to have our first trip. I love travelling and you can read about my travels in another blog of mine - My Heart Soars.
When I was 32, we travelled to Pyrenees together. I could not even pronounce the word when he suggested the place. We planned the itinerary together via a lot of emails. That is when I found out he is very laidback in his travels and I am 'follow-to-the-schedule' kind of person. I can tell you it was stressful for me when my itinerary was not followed and I had to adapt. It caused me some frustration and it is true that you get to know the person when you travelled together.
When I was 33, we travelled to Romania together. This time, my itinerary was more relaxed. I allowed a lot of time in between places. I was not stressed. At the end of 2016, I got the approval to migrate to Sweden.
6 months later, on 31 May 2017, I stand by the window with Emirates plane behind me, ready to board.
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