As I write this, it’s been 10 days since I’ve landed in Sweden.
Nils and I had our first date on April 1st, 2019. I actually wasn’t sure of the date, I had to look up my text history where I messaged him after I got home:
> Hey this is Meghan! I enjoy talking to you too.
Then shortly after I flew to a family event in Ohio where I stayed for a few days. I flew home, carrying on with life and casually texting that guy I had a beer with. We planned our 2nd date and met on April 10th, 2019. After the date I texted him that I was worried I overshared and wasn’t very cool and casual, and he texted:
> No need to fret, I like you.
From then on, we saw each other multiple times each week until we finally relented to the forces of fate and moved in together in August 2019. So, I am fairly certain this is the longest we have ever been apart since I first laid eyes on him at that bar. In a world that idolizes extreme independence and competition, while hammering on divorce statistics, it’s somewhat of a liability to need someone. But I do. I need Nils.
I had my first full-blown panic attack a few weeks ago. I was making sandwiches for my kids and a perfect storm of fears and worries swirled inside my head like a tornado until I felt my heart racing, my chest tight, and my breaths shallow. A sense of doom bubbled up within me, like I might die right then and there and who would finish these sandwiches? I leaned over the countertop and focused on breathing, closed my eyes, and dragged my thoughts to a pier. I imagine I am standing on a pier in a gusting storm. The whitecap waves are high and they crash against the pier spraying water in my face. There’s lighting flashes in the distance and the clap and rumble of thunder that I feel in my bones. It’s terrifying and my heart races, but I am safe. I am on the pier, solid under my feet.
In this storm of life, Nils is my pier.
It’s strange to think that seven years ago in Seattle I was existing in a similar way as I am now in Stockholm, with work, groceries, dinner, sleep. Then, I was fundamentally on my own. Now, I feel the absence of my family like a missing limb or a hole in my heart. I think the idea of that would have terrified my 25 year old self. I was fiercely independent and never wanted to need anyone, especially a man. Childhood experiences gave me an association of adult man = yelling, anger, rage. Fear. Dating men felt like playing with fire, always in fear of being burned, always having a plan to pull back at the first sign of danger, never ever letting myself become trapped or dependent.
The night before our wedding, Nils and I sat and talked on the floor in our dining room and that creeping fear came back that one day, when I was properly trapped, he would let some dormant side of him surface. As if marriage activated some switch in men that could turn him angry and violent. Without any provoking cause, I nervously asked him, “After we’re married, do you promise you will never scream at me, or throw something in anger, or storm out?” There was no judgement in response to this insane question, only generous reassurance and understanding.
In the years since, I’ve come to terms that there’s no such thing as risk-free in love, but that’s okay. The best we can do is minimize the risk through time and trust, but at some point, you have to jump in to make it work. Forget the exit plans, let go of the fear, give in to hope. The tendency to guard our hearts and stay invulnerable is a futile attempt at minimizing the risk of heartbreak. Someday, in a manner I could never predict, one of my kids could break my heart. Even in that severe heartbreak, I would not regret a single second of my life that I spent loving them. Love is what makes life worth living, so now I’m living for it.
In a couple weeks they will be here in Stockholm just in time for Midsommar, and the world will seem much brighter. I can’t wait to take the train into the city and get to be silly tourists in our new home. I can’t wait to see my kids shuffle out of their rooms in the morning with disheveled pajamas and bedhead hair. Most of all, I can’t wait to start this new adventure with Nils, knowing that together we can face anything.
Normal Human Female 
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