I used to write a birthday post every year, as a type of “looking back” thing. My birthday is sufficiently close to the start of the year that I could easily make it about summarising the old year, the way people often do at around the start of a new one. I think it’s a nice tradition, and a useful one, too. I forget things so easily, and looking back can give necessary perspective.

So, my 33 was chaotic, to say the least. I don’t remember much of the start of the year. I was looking for a job and had been for half a year by that point, and it seemed like there was no resolution in sight. I was desperately in love with someone who lived far away from me, and sometimes the only thing that seemed to keep me sane was the counter ticking towards our next meeting (which were months apart). I also worked out fairly actively back then, which was another sanity-reinforcing thing in my life.

Things changed abruptly when I applied for a job in Denmark in late June, and was interviewed and accepted in early July. Suddenly I needed to move my entire existence from Finland to Denmark within a month, not to mention move in with someone I knew well, but had only met a handful of times. I couldn’t have done it without the absolutely invaluable (including financial…) help from my parents, and all my dear friends who pitched in as well. That one month was stressful beyond belief, but somehow it all worked out, and by the end of July I had moved to Denmark. The next week I started at my current job.

It has been an adjustment, for sure. The first months were a blur of trying to get all the necessary paperwork taken care of, learning the job, unpacking a life’s worth of things and fitting them into an apartment that already housed someone else’s life, healing hurts (including a nasty infection on my second week here, and a toenail I managed to partially rip off while unpacking things), starting the language course to learn Danish (twice, because they put me in an advanced class first, when I didn’t speak a word yet…), and not least, learning to fit our lives together with M, who has been amazing through it all, I have to say. As has his family, who took me in with open arms.

Eventually things have settled down more. My work contract got renewed at the start of the year, so for now, employment is secure. It’s not a job I want to spend the rest of my life doing, but it sure beats unemployment, and I have a great group of colleagues I enjoy seeing every day. (I got several different happy birthday songs today in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and even Somali from my colleagues, which was surprising and extremely delightful.) I’m starting to learn Danish, although I still find it very challenging, and it’s going to be a long road before I’m anywhere near fluency. I’ve even taken my first somewhat floundering steps towards physical activity again, after six months of no regular exercise of any kind (besides riding the bike to get from one place to another). And M and I… We fit together. We make each other happier than we are alone, and we’re both pretty happy alone, too.

I miss my friends and family sometimes, but I’m home now. It’s not an entirely familiar home, but it feels right, and I haven’t regretted the choice I made to come here.

As for what I’d like from my 34:

• Basic fluency in Danish, i.e. the ability to run regular errands and hold a conversation without needing to resort to English much or at all.
• Regular exercise routine that I find enjoyable and sustainable.
• More good times with M. I’m especially looking forward to my first Danish summer!
• Friends’ visits. I already have two scheduled, and hopefully there will be more.
• Visiting Finland in turn.
• Learning my way around Aarhus more, so I can find nice places to visit/shop in (and take other people, too), get a library card and other things I still don’t have.

Come what may, I’m looking forward to it!