Reflection 4
Being Here
The moment my feet touched the platform, stepping off the Flytog (airport train), something inside me shifted.
As I stepped outside, the warm sunshine hit my face, and the familiar Norwegian air rushed in. The breeze carried the smell of summer. The sky stretched overhead in that impossible shade of blue that somehow feels different here. I could hear Norwegian conversations around me, dialects blending together like music I had missed for far too long.
Before I even understood why, tears filled my eyes.
As the sunlight danced across my freckles, I felt it immediately.
That feeling deep in my gut.
I was home.
There is a weight I carry almost all the time. Not dramatic enough to stop me from living. Not heavy enough to keep me from working. Just present. Always present.
A tightness in my chest.
A feeling that I am always bracing for something.
Always preparing.
Always pushing through.
I have carried it for so long that I sometimes forget it is there.
And somehow, being here lifts it.
Instantly.
I do not know how to explain it.
But I breathe differently here.
Not metaphorically.
Physically.
My shoulders relax.
My jaw unclenches.
My chest loosens.
It feels like someone has opened a window inside me.
Back home, I am quick to anxiety. Quick to frustration. Small inconveniences feel enormous because I already feel stretched thin.
Here, things go wrong, and somehow I laugh.
Plans change.
I miss a train.
My phone breaks at the most inconvenient time.
It rains unexpectedly.
Something gets messed up.
And instead of spiraling, I shrug and think:
Det ordner seg.
It will work out.
Because somehow, here, I believe that.
Maybe that is what home really is.
Not perfection.
Not ease.
But the place where your nervous system finally exhales. The place where your shoulders drop without you telling them to. The place where your mind becomes quiet. The place where you recognize yourself again.
As I walk these streets, hearing Norwegian around me and watching people sit outside with coffee and ice cream in the sunshine, I feel something I have missed so desperately.
My heart flutters.
Not because life here is perfect.
Not because difficulties do not exist.
But because somewhere along the way, this country became intertwined with the person I became here.
The happiest version of myself. The kindest version of myself. The most creative version of myself. The version of myself who believed life could be soft.
And this visit feels different.
As I walk through Oslo, I catch myself imagining an ordinary life here.
Not vacation.
Not a visit.
Life.
Buying groceries after work. Walking home in the rain. Meeting friends for coffee. Speaking Norwegian every day. Growing older here. Doing work that matters. Living slowly.
And that is what makes this visit so beautiful and so painful.
Everything here feels right.
And because everything feels right, I know my heart will break when I leave.
I want to hold onto every sunset reflected in the fjord.
Every conversation.
Every walk through streets that somehow feel more like home than the place I currently live.
I want to savor every moment.
But how do you fully enjoy something while already grieving its future absence?
How do you hold joy and heartbreak in the same hand?
Perhaps that is the cost of loving a place this deeply.
Not everyone experiences it.
But those of us who do understand that sometimes a place becomes more than a place.
Sometimes it becomes part of your soul.
And perhaps that is why leaving never gets easier.