I’ve just been for a swim at a pool I haven’t visited for quite a while. As I walked through the doors I was suddenly struck by the feeling of being in a foreign country. I don’t consciously experience this a lot while in Copenhagen these days, but for a while I was back in an alien society and everything seemed slightly quirky and off kilter: the lighting, the ticket clerk, the supremely relaxed attitudes about nudity while changing, the uptight staff-monitored showering before swimming and the packed pool at 8pm on a winter’s evening.
As I swam lengths I began contrasting my life now with how it was a few years back and what I’ve done inbetween. For about fifteen minutes I could see everything with an old pair of eyes and I was quite dumbfounded at the paths I’d taken and what I’d achieved. This started me thinking about how it was all possible and eventually came back to my much touted belief in the destructiveness of routines and safety.
In the same same way that one rarely takes a random left turn during a monotonous daily commute, it’s near impossible to make radical changes to your life when burdened with expectations and status. I tried to track how I’d managed to build up my own company here in Denmark and what would have been different in the UK. I believe the primary reason was my ability to live in a tiny room on a pittance with minimal possessions for so long. This allowed me the freedom to work hard and learn hard without having to worry about income too much. It actually wasn’t that difficult to do and even now that we are a team of five all earning enough to live, I still don’t feel the need to “raise my stakes” too much.
This prolonged low-risk battle (also shared to some degree by my cohorts) is why I think the company survived the dark days long enough to eventually attain the relative success it has, but it doesn’t answer how I managed to do it. I was previously on a reasonable wage living in a nice, well-furnished apartment and although my life was far from lavish (student debts were enough to neutralise a lot of my earnings), I arguably lived in a much more comfortable style with more freedom to do what I want.
Most of this sneaked up on me over the years and by the time I realised I was actually desperately unhappy with it all, it was almost too late. I had reached an unavoidable expectation level both from myself and of others. You can change a routine and broaden outlooks by moving to a new town, but you still can’t escape YOU; your culture, your society, your career path, your achievements and your failures.
There were lots of parts of me I didn’t want to escape from, but whatever I thought about doing next was fronted with impossibilities and obvious, logical reasons why I would fail. Selling all my things, quitting my job and moving to a different house around the corner seemed both attention seeking and destructive. I reached a point of panic and wanted out of everything. With hindsight this is what fuelled my move to Denmark. Once I arrived I felt free from many aspects of my old lifestyle, but more importantly I felt free from cultural expectations.
No matter how much you believe you can shun the typical trappings of a society, they are always with you: how to queue, how to greet people, how to address a cashier in the bank, where to look when sat opposite someone on public transport, what to wear, when to go to bed. These things are so small, yet so plentiful that in many ways they place unseen chains around every action you take. As time went on I became increasingly aware of the release my move abroad had created and, coupled with literally not knowing what was possible, I decided to try out a lot of things. Everything is a breeze when being from a different culture can be used as an internal excuse and force of reasoning. You can be an outsider and still accepted in a way that transcends social norms, solely because you’re not expected to fit in(*). It becomes a positive and inclusive experience rather than an exclusive and lonely role.
After 2 and a half years, a lot of these feelings are gone from my every day experiences, but I generally feel that they have become integrated into who I am rather than lost by the wayside.
However as I left the building I realised that actually I’d instinctively bought my ticket in Danish, showered and scrubbed all required areas, swum in the regimented lane systems and then paraded around the locker area without a towel to be seen. I even popped a couple of lakrids sweets in my pic’n'mix on the way home. I guess I’ve just accepted a whole new set of norms.
(*) Of course I realise that the pairing of a British person and Denmark’s society is generally quite fortunate in this respect and that many cultural migrations are tarred with enough prejudice to make my writing seem awkward and naive. Sorry.
