Almost flown

Last night, before going out to a concert, I said goodbye to AAH more or less for the duration of the weekend. She was going out with her boyfriend, was going to stay over at his place, then going straight to work today, then straight to meeting her friends for dinner. By the time she gets home I’ll be at the National Theatre watching a play, and I expect she’ll stay over at her bf’s again tonight. Then to work again tomorrow ... so I’ll probably not see her until tomorrow evening.

It has been the same situation for the last several weekends. Waking up in the morning to find her bedroom door open, and her bed unslept in. EPI and I having breakfast à deux. It’s weird. A natural transition – but still weird.

When AAH was around one years old, her father and I split up after a brief but valiant effort at living together. It was a tough time; I was more than a little lost, living in Germany, and having a baby hadn’t exactly been on the agenda. After we went our separate ways, her father moved back to the US where he was from and effectively disappeared from our lives for the next 11 years. I had no family nearby, hadn’t lived in Iceland since I was a child, and had been away from Canada too long to be able to return [my immigration status expired after six months away]. My mother, by then a Canadian citizen, refused to help me by sponsoring me back to the country that had formed me; I had no work, no support, little money, and a child to take care of.

In the letter that my mother wrote me, she urged me to, “... return to Iceland, the only country to which you have any claim” [where I was to “work on overcoming [my] two deadly sins: pride and arrogance” – but that’s another story]. The prospect of returning to Iceland terrified me; however in the end it’s what I did. There’s not been a single day in which I’ve regretted making that decision, even though it was incredibly tough going at first, for many different reasons. [Actually, that decision wasn’t really mine – in hindsight I see that it was really made for me, one of the many blessings in my life.] Assimilating into Icelandic society as an outsider is incredibly tough, as anyone who’s done so will attest to, and being alone with a child meant that I was socially isolated. The family members I had here were all entrenched in their lives and we were more or less strangers to each other. It was very hard for me to ask for help, so I avoided doing so at all costs, unless I absolutely had to.

Even so, I had the wherewithal to recognize that being with a small child 24/7 and never having a break was harmful both to me and the child, so I negotiated a deal with my father that he and his family would look after AAH for one weekend a month, so I could have a bit of time to myself – to sleep late, if nothing else. Around this time I met EPI, and those weekends in the early stages of our courtship became unbelievably precious. Every single moment was treasured and used to the fullest. On Fridays we’d normally meet up after work, buy something for dinner then go home to cook together, and if we were up to it, go out later for a drink somewhere. Saturdays we’d sleep late, have breakfast, maybe go to the swimming pool, then to a movie – sometimes even two movies in a row in one evening [we like movies]. By Sunday afternoon it would be time to welcome AAH back home.

This morning at breakfast I started reminiscing to EPI about that time. I remember how, back then, it felt to me like things would never change, that life would always be hard. It seems so distant now, and yet time has passed so quickly so it's almost like yesterday. AAH is practically all grown up, and it's hard to know where the time went. EPI and I have breakfast by ourselves on weekends and it’s no longer a luxury but a natural development. And life is no longer hard all the time. Only sometimes.

WE’VE WEATHERED OUR TWO-DAY STORM
Although it’s still windy and pretty cold. I’m still afflicted with this icky cold and as you can tell I’m getting all morose and reflective in absence of my endorphin fix. Temps are –3°C at the moment [27F]. Sunrise this morning was at 10.44 and sunset at 3.48 pm. – Incidentally! It’s a Big Day for Niceland today, being the anniversary of the day we were awarded Home Rule from Denmark, back in 1918.