“God damn, Emily that’s an AWFUL title.”
“Thanks, I.d., my internal dialogue, I’m so glad you’re here too.”
“You can’t escape me.”
“True. But maybe we can be friends.”
“Keep dreaming, hunny.”
“How is my I.d. a raging dick and a sexist?”
“Isn’t everyone’s?”
“Let’s just get on with the introduction to my blog.”
I started writing this blog when I was sitting at Newark airport waiting for my flight to Norway. I had never been before, and I had absolutely no reason to be going, except for this persistent dream of mine to move there. A dream that is also without apparent reason, unless one counts an obsession with Vikings and health care. I’m of the somewhat sensible persuasion, and ever practical—occasionally to a fault. I wouldn’t move to a country I’ve never been to, that’s just too spontaneous for me. I wish I had a little more joie de vivre, a little more, live-by-the-seat-of-my-pants going on, but that’s not in my constitution this time around. I once declared to a table of two people that I wasn’t funny enough to be an entertainment lawyer. I was dead serious. They thought I was being hilarious. I’ve learned to lighten up a bit over the years. I’m even teaching my inner child what fun is these days.
Luckily for everyone reading this blog, I didn’t run into many conversations about health care in Norway. Health care is great. I don’t know that I would call it “fun.” My inner child streak of seriousness aside, I’m pretty sure I had an avalanche of excitement in Norway. There were high-speed chases (what?), thievery (was I there for this?), burglary (this is definitely the wrong blog), scandalous affairs (who ARE you??), and all kinds of nefarious goings-on (nefarious? That’s a little highbrow for this, don’t you think?). Okay, so none of that happened, but I got lost a couple of times, ended up on the wrong side of a fjord, received three marriage proposals in one evening, missed my bus stop and had to hitchhike back, convinced a bunch of strangers to hire a taxi van with me and wound up in Finland to see the Northern Lights—you know, just regular life shenanigans (yea, if you’re Indiana Jones).
In other words, Norway was an adventure. A series of them, in fact. The universe just kept handing them to me and saying,
“Have fun, Emily, we know you can do it!”
“Wait, handle these adventures or have fun?”
“Why can’t you do both?”
“Oh, yea, because adventures ARE fun!”
“Stop dissecting everything, Emily. You’re killing the fun.”
“I.d., are you pretending to be the universe in my head right now?”
“No, that’s just you playing mind games with yourself.”
“I know that’s you, I.d.”
<<New voice>> “Who’s playing what with whom?”
<<Phone extension clicks>> “Hello?”
<<I.d.>> “Who’s this?”
“Oh my god, what is going on here. How many people are on this line!? Everyone get off!”
I love the inside of my mind. It’s a crazy place. Keeps me sane. Anyhoo. I do enjoy a good time. My constitution doesn’t hate fun—not even close. Over the past however many years, I just forgot what a good time was. I used to know what that looked like, but one day after I had been a lawyer for seven years, I woke up and realized that I didn’t know what I wanted my dream house to look like. Other people have dreams and visions about what kind of living space would make them happy. I had stopped allowing myself to have fun, so I didn’t remember what fun, or creativity, felt like. I didn’t remember what my dreams were. I was so lost, I thought I never had any in the first place. Happily for me, my life imploded shortly after that. The implosion gave me the opportunity to change.
Contrary to popular wisdom, people can change. The gating question is what people can change about themselves. I think your constitution is something you have to honor but it shouldn’t hold you back. My constitution is a stubborn one and resists change. But, I am working to stay in the higher vibrations of my constitution, and that means learning how to embrace the unexpected. I wasn’t born with a spontaneous streak. Doesn’t mean I can’t find the fire that’s within me and use it to fuel my dreams. It was the shift in my world around me and the resulting transformation within me that led to the realization of my Norway dream.
Norway is the subject of what I’m loosely calling this “travel blog.” My travel blog isn’t just a catalogue of travel tips, what I saw, what I did, or what I recommend doing in Norway. Those things are in this travel blog, yes. The story in the footnotes, as we like to say in law,[1] is about how Norway brought me back to life. How I remembered what fun feels like for me.
The subject of this introduction is a little more squishy. It’s my story, some bad jokes, a little commentary, and some life-thoughts. More generally speaking, it’s the “what,” the “why,” and the “how” that led to Norway. My story has, up until very recently, been characterized by endurance and struggle, but it has become a story of rebirth and happiness. This is the story of my second chance at life, my “take two.” Let’s begin with a short recap of take one, shall we?
Life is an experience. Your experiences are what shape you. The crappy thing is life’s experiences aren’t distributed evenly or fairly. A ten-year-old may have experienced more in their short life than a 70-year-old. There’s no rhyme or reason. It isn’t even always karma. Sometimes s*** just happens, and some people have to shovel more s*** than others.
By age 14 I had lived in five different countries across the world—from the United States all the way to East Asia. My parents, my little sister and I moved from country to country every three to five years and that was completely normal for us. We got a new home, new school, new friends, new everything. My sister and I went to the international schools, where most of the other children also moved around every few years. That was how it was. Our paths cut across a constantly changing terrain. Adapting seamlessly was the name of the game. It required perception of every single detail, thick skin and a “winning” personality, and when I say “winning” I mean don’t lose, because the stakes could be your happiness for the next three to five years in some place like South Korea, where 20 years ago you might have been mercilessly persecuted for being openly “not Christian” (yes, that was me, and yes, I did lose). You don’t come by most of those attributes naturally. You build them through difficulty and necessity. When you don’t speak the same language or share the same cultural background, it is that much harder to adjust. The challenges are that much more challenging.
I didn’t appreciate how much “endurance” characterized my childhood until after my life imploded at age 35. Part of this is because I was a child—I didn’t have the option to choose a life that required less stamina. I am not ungrateful for my upbringing. Quite the contrary. Thanks to my childhood, I have an immense capacity to endure, no matter how grueling or unpleasant the situation. The problem is that I don’t always know when to let go—I hold on for too long. Part of my life implosion was caused by my big-law job and my failure to leave. It was literally and figuratively killing me and I couldn’t find a way out. I didn’t think there was an alternative to being a lawyer. I didn’t know I could choose another path for myself—I didn’t know that was even an option. So I endured, because I thought I didn’t have a choice and because I could. Perfect recipe for an early midlife crisis on the tail end of the pandemic.
———————————————-
[1] In a legal article, called a “note” in lawyer jargon, the footnotes provide a separate, but parallel narrative that complements the main topic of the note. Usually, the footnotes are just as important as the note itself and occasionally, the footnotes are the real story.