"Don't Think About It": A Thought Piece

I've heard it, read it, thought it, and said it to myself, countless times:

"Don't think about it. Just don't think about The Great Wait."

As of the date of this post, Johan and I are 8.5 months into our wait.  And we expect to wait another 5 months before receiving a decision.  We have come to a place of peace about that.  But still, there are good days and there are bad days.

I wonder: How do you not think about something that your whole life revolves around?  Suppose you would say to a Swede in the dead of winter, "Don't think about the sun." Suppose you would tell a hungry child on the street, "Don't think about food."  Suppose you would tell a house in the shadow of a forest fire, "Don't think about water." Suppose you would tell a new parent, "Don't think about sleep."

Before I get too deep into this, I will say without a doubt that dwelling on an undetermined wait period can and very well might drive you mad.  As I mentioned in The Swedish Sambo Visa Process Part 5, whether time seems to pass slowly or fast, its pace doesn't actually change; it's just our perception that does. And focusing on waiting on anything, certainly guarantees it will feel longer than it actually is.  There are times when occupying your mind with something more constructive than anxiously obsessing over a wait, is very much necessary and warranted.  Usually when you feel intolerable anxiety or suffering, that's when you know it's time to regain control and get a better look at the bigger picture.  Acknowledge you will, in fact, survive this wait. Regroup.  

But, I also chafe against the notion that we should strive always to "not think about it"...

Surviving A Long Distance Relationship: How To Not Get Lost At Sea

I wrote a hand-written letter to Johan last month after watching the documentary Maidentrip, and realized how very much a long distance relationship is akin to being lost at sea.

Everything begins to look monotonous. You find yourself waking up each morning hoping you can spot land... only to be let down by the unending flat line of the horizon.  The sailing is choppy at best, and even sunny days can be brutal.  You begin to wonder when you will start searching for a volleyball to name "Wilson".

9 hours of time difference. 5,490 miles apart. For 5 years, 7 months and counting, that has been Johan's and my commute.  We have never spent more than a month together at any one time.  We went 4 years before ever even meeting in person.  But over time and technologies, we have come to utilize every form of communication at our disposal. We have done everything from making videos on YouTube for one another, to designing, budgeting and building a brand new kitchen using IKEA's layout builder and GoogleDocs.   

Johan and I may not be experts, but we feel we have a bit of experience now with the difficult art of a Long Distance Relationship.  Below are the top 10 tips we can give to anyone in (or soon to be in) an LDR, to help prevent feeling "lost at sea".  Have you got any to share?

50 Songs (and counting!) for When You Really Miss Someone

Music.

Somehow, the combination of words and sounds can make me feel like I am both expressing how I feel, and being understood for how I feel, all at once.  Just like the value of a good cry or having a friend to vent to without repercussion, music is extremely therapeutic.

The following list contains 50 songs (with more being added after publishing!) from an ongoing modern/indie love song playlist we've compiled for those who, particularly, are separated, missing one another, waiting for one another, and/or navigating obstacles.  Our list has about 108 songs on it, but these are some of my favorites.

If you're the type of person who looks to music to help understand what you are feeling, try a few of these out.  I've organized the list to start off soft, build up, and then come back down again. Hopefully I didn't misplace anything and kill the flow!

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 5: The Science of Waiting (6 Things I Learned in the First 6 Months)

After 6 months of waiting, I did a lot of reflecting on my 3 hour drive to San Diego to do my interview in July, and I wrote some notes about everything I had learned about myself and my relationship with Johan during the first leg of The Great Wait.  In no particular order, they are as follows:

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 4: The Interview

EDIT: Another reminder that the following information is for NON-EU CITIZEN APPLICANTS.  EU citizens have a whole different process (including not needing to do an interview).  Read more about it on MV's website here. 

Johan and I commenced the second leg of The Great Wait the day after I arrived back in Los Angeles after visiting him in Sweden in June.  Fresh off the plane and full of both sadness and anticipation, I tried to enjoy the nervous feelings of this moment we had waited so long for.  I believe they call it, "living in the moment".... which was hard, knowing we had so long to go before being able to be together again.

I studied my application to make sure I remembered all the dates and details we were required to give in our original application. I brought a binder full of photos, call logs, original flight stubs, my original Single Status paperwork, and made sure I had my passport in hand.  Johan and I also had a couple friends and family write personal statements confirming our relationship, as we had read everywhere that you should bring absolutely everything you possibly can to your interview in case they had specific questions - better to be safe than sorry!

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 3: The Great Wait

EDIT: Another reminder that the following information is for NON-EU CITIZEN APPLICANTS.  EU citizens have a whole different process.  Read more about it on MV's website here. 

As an American researching the Swedish sambo visa for the first time, you likely first encountered a plethora of dated blogs online (The "Olivia Blog", the "Skinny of the Sambo Visa" blog, or the late "An American in Stockholm" blog which was recently taken down and deleted). These blogs are helpful indeed, but the problem is that they are all written by applicants who applied and moved in 2013 or prior -- a time before the European Immigration Crisis and the events that led up to it (which are described in more detail in Part 7), which caused asylum applications to boom.  This severely log-jammed Migrationsverket, and their ability to process applications speedily*. Prior to this time, uppehållstillstånd (or, a residence permit) was much quicker to procure; four months, in and out.  This has led several of us to false hopes in the beginning of our own applications, thinking we could expect a speedy turn around too.
* For added proof, please review the second-to-last paragraph of page 9 of this 2013 EMN Policy Report re: the beginning of increased times due to asylum seekers.  And again, in the middle of page 11 of this 2014 EMN Policy Report re: increased processing times.

It is, as you might imagine, quite a different story for applicants today.

While I cannot speak for everybody, this is our story.

(EDITED) The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 2: The Process (updated 9 Nov 2015)

EDIT (9 November 2015):  I wrote the following blog post less than 2 months ago, and already the wait times have elongated substantially.  I have also learned a lot more.  So, the following contains several changes to the original post (published 7 September, and updated once previously on 25 October). 

This is just a quick run-down of the process for applying for a UT ("Uppehållestillstånd, or residence permit) on the basis of a relationship. And just another reminder: this is the process for NON-EU CITIZEN APPLICANTS.  EU citizens have a whole different process.  Read more about it on MV's website here.

I've edited this piece several times as I learn new information. What you're about to read is not pretty, and it is not going to feel good.  So, prepare yourself for it.  However, it is the truth and the reality of the situation we (or, more appropriately, Sweden) has found itself in due to the refugee bonanza.  One thing you need to do is take a slow, deep, calming breath, and when you're ready, say firmly to yourself:  "I AM GOING TO SURVIVE THIS." Because, you will.  It will hurt like hell, but you WILL MAKE IT THROUGH.

With that said.....

The Swedish Sambo Visa in 2015 Part 1: What is it?

This topic will require several installments, as well as full disclosure that I am still figuring it out, piece by piece. Given that I am only little more than half way through the process (8 months and counting), I can't speak with full authority on how this will all shake out.  But I have 8 months under my belt, and have spoken to Migrationsverket ("MV") enough times to ensure they hate me, so I might as well share what I have learned about the Swedish Sambo Visa.

EDIT: A reminder that this is the overview for NON-EU CITIZEN APPLICANTS.  EU citizens have a whole different process.  Read more about it on MV's website here.

Our Story (once and for all!)

As I sit here at Starbucks with an old coffee cup full of wine (what people don't know won't kill them), I feel both exhausted and prematurely relieved to be writing this blog post.  I feel I have told Johan's and my story a hundred different times, to a thousand different people, in at least 50 different ways.

Here, for the first (and last) "official" time, is our story:

I have always been a lover of cultures and languages. I had studied 6 years of Spanish through high school and college, and was (at that point) an avid lover of Latin cultures.  However, while still in college, I met a guy of Swedish decent in my local gym.  He and I dated for several years, and I fell in love with how alien Swedish culture was from what I had grown up knowing.  I couldn't get enough of learning how a society like theirs worked, what drove their beliefs and opinions, what was at the root of their life philosophy and how it evolved to be as such.

I also took up learning the language recreationally, because I just thought it was cool-sounding. After college, the relationship came to a natural end, and we parted ways.  However, as the months passed, I felt my heart longing to learn more, missing so much that window into a different world that I had.  I continued to study the language through books, LiveMocha.com and InterPals.com, but it just wasn't enough. I wanted more than just a resource; I wanted direct access.

So, on 17 February 2010, on a rainy evening while procrastinating going to the gym, I hopped online and went into Facebook.  There, I typed in the Swedish version of my ex's last name (the only Swedish surname I really knew at the time), and drew up a list of people.  I selected the first goood-looking guy on the list (after all, who wouldn't want their penpal to be cute!), and sent him the following message:

Hej! Du känner mig inte, men jag försöker lära mig svenksa och jag behöver en "penpal"!  I just randomly found you on Facebook and was wondering if you'd be willing to send messages a little with me? We don't need to become friends or anything.  I'm just trying to learn the language and slang and stuff.  Kan du hjälpa mig?  Tack så mycket gärna!"

The next day, Johan sent me a message.  Over the course of the next 5 years, we would talk almost daily, often times for hours.  We also had a variety of failed trips to visit one another, and endured more hardships between us than ever before. 

In 2010, we had to cancel my first trip to visit him because of the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull.  Then, later that year, we had to cancel because Johan took a job in Norway and couldn't get the time off to be with me.

In 2011, I took a new job and Johan enrolled into a school program, which prevented either of us from being able to visit each other.  Later that year, a close friend of Johan's took his life, which cast an even darker pallor on us meeting up for the first time.  But still, we talked often.  

In 2012, I learned I had a tumor in my breast.  After much monitoring, it was determined it was benign, and I knew I was tired of waiting to meet Johan.  He was in the process of receiving keys to a second house his family purchased, and so I planned my trip to come visit him.  But escrow took forever and I couldn't reschedule my time off.  So, I booked my flight for Spain instead.  As luck should always have it, Johan received his keys after all.... but flights were impossibly expensive, so we had to forgo meeting up.  I remember sitting at London Heathrow on my leg back to Los Angeles, staring at my phone's GPS map and thinking of that quote from the movie GATTACCA where Ethan Hawke said, "I was never so sure of how far I was from my dream, than when I was standing right beside it."

In 2013, Johan finished up school but I slipped two discs in my back and was unable to do anything else but focus on the next 1.5 years of recovery.

Finally, in 2014, we were able to make it happen.  I flew out in the summertime, and despite the excitement and the jitters of the first 45 minutes or so, we quickly eased into being in the presence of one another, and the love and laughter has not ended since. 

There was one moment in particular, toward the end of my trip, as we were driving home from a ridiculous day of golfing and the sunset made the sky all shades of pink and purple, that I thought to myself, "I could live here all my life and be happy."  It was a strong statement, given I adjusted quite roughly to the isolation of the Swedish countryside, no matter how beautiful it was.

Johan and I never spoke of our feelings before that summer of 2014.  No doubt that after years of getting to know someone from the inside out, we both felt strongly for one another.  But to voice them without meeting in person and finding out for real if the chemistry was truly there, would have been crazy.  But the chemistry WAS indeed there, so strong that I couldn't deny it.  So strong that my heart must have swelled to 8 times it's size, because I choked on it the whole way to the airport on that awful day I had to leave. 

Johan came to visit me for a month between December 2014 and January 2015, and in that time, we decided that our love for each other was unavoidable, and that we needed to be together.  We knew we were "the one" for each other, and so we began the process of applying for a Sambo Visa in order that I may emigrate to Sweden to be with him.

Some pictures of us:

Sea Cave Kayaking in La Jolla!

At the Hollywood Sign

A dinner in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego

His first time trying a Rootbeer Float!

One of my absolute favorites. He is so handsome :)