Why Denmark?
Yesterday was my ten year anniversary of moving to Denmark.
It'd be compelling to put all ten of those years into one box, and wrap it all up with answers to the common questions like "why I moved here" or to entertain you with comparisons like "what's the difference between Denmark and the US?" But if I've learned anything in my time here, it's that expatriation, nationality, countries, and culture, are incredible nuanced.
I initially decided to move to Denmark because I had fallen in love with a Dane. We met on a train in Northern Mexico while we were both traveling in the Copper Canyon region and had a five day long love affair suited for the silver screen.
We danced in the old Spanish squares and Malacon of Mazatlan to live banda music, frequented authentic Mexican taco stands at 4am and ate tacos with so much chili in them we cried, made love on the roof of our hotel, spent an entire day in bed together getting to know one another's bodies and hearts on Valentine's Day...
It was all terribly romantic.
I was also conveniently growing out of New York City (as though such a thing is possible, but I assure you, it is), and was already preparing to relocate to Paris for work when he and I met. I hadn't dated an American in probably four years at that point. I knew I was moving to Europe.
After a year and a half of long distance courtship, I came here on a three month leave of absence from my job at BNP Paribas. By the time all the administrative details of me moving to Denmark were finalized and I was on the plane, I was basically running on inertia. My mantra at the time was "why not?"
A few months earlier I had had an experience where it became clear to me that the relationship we were in — although I loved him — wasn't the right relationship for me.
And I ignored my intuition. Because I was insecure, and I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to prove to myself (and everyone else) that I was capable of having the relationship everyone else thought I had. I wanted it to be "my turn" to fall in love and live happily ever after.
And on this day ten years ago, I had a job interview at Nordea and got a job. A better job than I would've had in Paris. More money. Better benefits. And a grand opportunity to prove my intuition wrong. So I stayed.
I genuinely tried everything I could think of to make our relationship extraordinary while integrating into a new, foreign, country, and in the process, I learned a lot about myself. I thought if I was the perfect girlfriend and the perfect adaptable foreigner ready to praise the new country she had just moved to — his country — I would get what I wanted from him (his love, his attention, his devotion to me). I thought if I was fair and diplomatic and logical in our disagreements he would respond in kind and we would grow together.
But life isn't perfect and fair and diplomatic and logical. Neither is relationship.
Our relationship looked pretty decent on the surface. He even started calling me "konen" ("the wife" in Danish) to his friends and family, but much like all of my close relationships from my early childhood, and much like life, it was painfully messy underneath.
At times our connection was so beautiful I was sure this was it. We talked about getting married and having children and buying homes together and traveling the world. We made passionate love together. His body felt like an extension of my own. At other times our connection was mostly lots of confusion, and control, and codependence, and avoidance, and two wounded children trying to look like adults together to prove other people wrong.
He wanted to be seen as capable.
I wanted to be seen as lovable and desirable.
At our worst, I rejected him and his capability by criticizing him (and genuinely believing he was incapable), and he rejected me in my lovability and desirability by avoiding me and pushing me away.
It was heartbreaking. For both of us. Neither of us could win with the other.
I wanted to go to couples therapy, to save our relationship, to figure out where we went wrong. He didn't. So after three years together, I moved out. He was furious with me for leaving and shut down even more, which I didn't understand. I thought I was giving him exactly what he wanted.
Going through all of this without the network of incredible friends I had left back in New York City was excruciating. I needed them severely — I needed them to look me in the face and see straight through my tough "I got this" outer shell and to hold me tight while I wailed. I had lost myself so completely in that relationship that I didn't even know who to call.
I spent a month crying alone in my new empty apartment, wondering if I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.
In the meantime, I had been discriminated against by my own company in my pursuit to buy the apartment I now live in. I needed a loan to buy an apartment so that I could stay in Denmark and keep my job and continue to build my career here, despite my broken heart. They couldn't understand why I would want to stay in Denmark if I had just broken up with my boyfriend (in their eyes, he was my only reason for being here in the first place), and refused to give me a loan. They tested me on my Danish and concluded that I wasn't invested enough in the country to be worthy of buying property here.
I eventually got a loan through another bank that was thrilled to take my money, and committed, once again, to proving my own bank — my employer — and everyone else here, wrong about my investment in Denmark. I was willing to totally abandon myself to make my point.
In the following year, I graduated from my Danish language classes with one of the highest grades in my class, I got promoted at my job, and started to build a community here through crossfit and weightlifting.
I was moving into the second of many eras of my life here in Denmark. The era where I tried to become Danish.
That era lasted about a year and a half before my life came crashing down (a "dark night of the soul" which would eventually lead me to walking away from my 12 year career, starting my own company, and completely rebuilding the way I live and relate to the world from scratch).
By some divine force much greater than my own stubborn will, I was going to use this time in Denmark not to become like everyone else, nor to prove anyone wrong. I was going to use it to reflect on my life and remember who I am.
Whether I liked it, or not.
And so, in a sea of uniform and homogeny, I made out to discover myself.
And although Denmark truly is one of the hardest places to live as an expat on the entire planet (I've got the statistics to prove it), I'm incredibly grateful that I got to go on that journey here.
Transformation requires adversity. And just outside my front doorstep I was confronted with it every day, until I could learn how to transmute adversity into power.
At any moment I could've left and been surrounded by more familiar comforts, like-minded people, lower taxes, more sunlight, longer days, more diversity, a government who appreciated the contribution of immigrants, fresher produce, a cheaper lifestyle.
And I knew that.
But I also knew that I was being shaped in ways I could not even begin to understand by choosing to stay.
Last year, in my 9th year and 40th some odd era of living in Denmark, in the height of the lockdown and our collective uncertain future, I finally stopped trying to prove my love for Denmark and instead let Denmark love me. I opened to receive the country I've lived in for a decade for exactly who it is.
Aloof.
Innovative.
Obscured.
Transparent.
Homogenous.
Diplomatic.
Bureaucratic.
Efficient.
Dark & Rainy.
Bright & Sunny.
Challenging.
Hyggelig.
And in doing so, I've learned that Denmark is, if anything, a place of stark contrasts.
Very much like me.
And then I had the answer for why I'm still here.
