I first applied to study my Master’s Programme in Sweden for the autumn 2022. Even though I had been a student for almost my whole adult life, the decision to become a student again in my thirties was not an easy or obvious choice; I was married, owned an apartment, had two cats and a stable job. How could I fit student life to my current lifestyle? And would it be worth it?
This wasn’t the first time I applied to Sweden for studies: I had graduated from my bachelor’s in Lund University, so I was familiar with the application process and the Swedish education system. Before applying for master’s, it wasn’t exactly clear for me what programme I would choose, but my background in Global Development Studies pulled me towards social sciences, global perspectives and equality.
In the main page of University Admissions Sweden, the application portal, it hit me: late applications were still open for Master’s Programme in Global Sexual and Reproductive Health. After reading the course curriculum, I was sure it was something I would totally love to study; it was global, it was about gender equality and with focus to middle- and low-income countries. I applied immediately. Back then, in 2022, I was 30, I was working and busy with life, so waiting for the results was not actively in the back of my head. Rather, I was entertaining myself with the idea of starting studies again and what it would mean to the life as I knew it. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
In the spring of 2022, I got the result: I had been admitted to Dalarna University! While I was happy and excited, I felt also anxious and insecure. I was married and living in an apartment I had bought, with my husband and our two adopted cats. I had a stable job. It felt like an impossible combo, me moving to another country and juggling the puzzle of it all. Even though the programme was offered as a hybrid mode, I did not want to become a distance student. During my bachelor’s I was studying in distance, since only after the beginning of my studies I moved back to Finland for work and for love. I studied and worked full time back then and it was not something I wanted to do twice. I kept postponing the decision making, forgetting to acknowledge that not making a decision is a decision too. Eventually I didn’t start my studies in the autumn of 2022. I was not ready to let go of the security of the life I was living at that moment.
But as the days went by, I kept feeling that something is off. I wasn’t enjoying my work and I felt stuck in my life. Something needed to change, and I had to take the initiative. I had to start making decisions and take responsibility for the kind of life I wanted to lead. At that time, I was just on a passenger’s seat. It was time I started driving.
The art of letting go
So, in November last year, I resigned from the stable job I wasn’t enjoying. While I had no idea what I was going to do, I also felt calm. This was my decision. I was willing to take responsibility, come what may. I applied to study in Sweden again, the same master’s, and in the meanwhile, I was looking for a job. I found one unexpectedly fast and got a fixed contract to work as an English and Spanish teacher for the spring of 2023 in my local elementary school. This time, I was waiting for the admission results more eagerly, even though I still wasn’t sure would I have the courage to become a student again.
One beautiful spring day, I get the results: I am approved, yet again. But I still had the exact same doubts than last year: can I fit student life in my current lifestyle and would it be worth it? Those days I was writing a lot of poetry, in many ways to encourage myself. In March 2023, I wrote a poem that I share to you in the end of this blog post. It is about having the courage to not deny my own desires, because going against them is like swimming against the current: you will just get more and more tired. It’s no use to exhaust yourself to a point of being forced to make a decision. So I started considering my life in Sweden.
However, I didn’t want to be married and live in another country than my husband. But I also didn’t want my husband to leave everything and follow me. Somehow, things started to unfold… Another poem that I had written a while back was becoming a reality in June 2023: our loving relationship with my husband had come to change its form. Instead of lovers, we had become friends. And so we decided to get a divorce and continue our love as a friendship. We applied for a divorce on June 30 and every day after that it became more certain to me: I am moving to Sweden.
The certainty I needed for the decision
I think it was mid-July when I said it out loud: I AM MOVING TO SWEDEN! In a month. I started to get super excited. OK, let’s start looking for a housing. OK, let’s be more active in the student Whatsapp-group. OK, let’s organize a going-away party! I felt so full of life and so free. And so certain. This was my path. I was not lost. It was all part of my journey. I needed the certainty before making a decision. 2022 was not the year, 2023 was. And here I am, a 32-year-old independent woman who couldn’t be happier to be a master student in Dalarna University in Sweden.
I hope this post gives you courage to make decisions for yourself. Something that helps me move forward when making big decisions is to consider that there really aren’t right or wrong ones. There are just decisions, and the outcomes might be different than we expected. And then we make a new decision. That’s it. Nothing is 100% likely to go how you planned it, and that’s life. We just have to learn to live and love its uncertainties and unexpected turns. Because that’s what makes life so interesting. (Oh, and also someone said that before making a big decision, you should do a headstand. To get some blood flowing in your brain. I tend to forget that but might as well try it the next time!)
With Love, Kristiina
Poem, March 2023
In your heartbeat runs the blood of all your ancestors / all those before you
passed away but never really gone / ready to give you all the wisdom they hold
whenever you ask for them
You might not believe in time travel / yet here you are
travelling across places and timelines / not accepting that time is but an illusion
You can be anywhere and everywhere all at once
You have roots / yet you are not a tree
You can always rip them and grow elsewhere
You have a limitless mind / yet you put yourself in a cage
forgetting that you alone hold the keys
and can open the doors anytime
Each encounter is magic / if you believe so
each soul as worthy as the rest
We are like drops of the same water
longing to return to the great ocean
to become one once more
Who you are in the world changes,
and you can live in a place that doesn’t
exist anywhere else but in your heart
And I don’t care if you believe in God or in the cosmic
forces of the Universe
or whether you decide to stay with the devil you know
But know this, my dear one
You cannot stop the rivers inside you from flowing
and you cannot swim against the current forever
Find your path
It’s always been there, stranger
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