As I am beginning to write these words, I am still unsure whether I want to continue. Is this really something I want to share with the world? I wasn’t going to talk about it. I didn’t feel like I had the energy to talk about it. I’ve been dragging my feet, dreading to do the inevitable.
Once the cat is out of the bag, there is no turning back. I’m painfully aware of this.
But deep down I already knew I signed up for this, by starting a YouTube channel and by doing this. This thing that I guess I am doing, opening myself up to the world. So, I was always somewhat prepared to face these emotions, because I feel like I owe it to you, whoever you are, to tell you what is going on and why things are changing.
Part of why I am reluctant is also that I’m absolutely terrified of coming across as self-absorbed. I’m already second-guessing the tone I started out with. It’s very dramatic, isn’t it?
It’s me asking for your time to read news about my life.
It’s weird for me to do that. I feel like it’s borderline pretentious even, somehow. Maybe? I’m not sure myself. It definitely feels weird and uncomfortable. I’m nobody, after all.
But secretly, there’s a part of me that loves a pretentious undertaking, at least in the arts, and a part of me that can’t stand it. I love the unapologetic homage to the glory and magnificence that is life and artistic expression, and the fearlessness in serenading all of that with full force.
I love it when people just go for it.
But then there’s the opposite of that. Where I cringe at any attempt at elevating artistic endeavors above more “important” and tangible worldly things, and where it’s silly and downright embarrassing to talk in dramatic terms, about anything really.
As if hyperbole is an unforgivable stain on the ears.
But that’s more an act. It’s born out of fear I think. Fear of ridicule and criticism.
To open one’s most pure and personal, almost childlike self up to the world, and have that child exposed to the full cynical onslaught of the world, takes almost Herculean courage.
Instead, it’s easier to let scar tissue speak for, and represent, unadulterated and magnificent flesh during whatever 5 minutes of limelight fame we managed to conjure up.
But the scar tissue is not really me. I am the pure unadulterated flesh, ready to get hurt. Deep down I love the pretentious pursuit. In fact, I think I’m jealous of it.
But I digress terribly (and apologies for the clumsy metaphors).
This is what I looked like a few days ago. I decided to grow a beard this year for personal reasons. Although trivial, they were symbolic and important to me.
In 2019 me and my wife moved to Sweden with our son and daughter. We moved to a region of Sweden I had never set foot in before. It was our great northern adventure. My wife is American, I am Swedish, and our two kids have dual citizenship.
I was born in the south of Sweden, but I had always wanted to see the north. It had an exotic pull that was hard for me to fully define, but it was there, and it was strong. Luckily, my wife was onboard without hesitation.
So, we looked at a map of Sweden, picked a city, signed a lease, and packed our bags.
We loved it.
We still love it.
The nature here is astounding and the northern lights are something truly special. I was beginning to really feel like this could be my home for a long time, and we really wanted to buy a house and start the next chapter here.
We wanted to learn how to grow our own food, have some animals, and restore whatever land we could afford.
To give back to the land and do something meaningful, something that felt right, not only to us, but also for our kids. To give them the skills that human beings have relied on for survival for millennia, and a connection with the eternal dance that is life and death.
A slower pace of life, and a foundation that could never be undone.
As silly as it sounds to share this, I decided to let my beard grow in honor of this dream. As if this symbolic undertaking would have some cosmic ripple effect and everything else would just fall into place. It was a silly and playful way to embody values that mattered to me, and still matters a great deal to me.
Well, I’m sad to say I since shaved.
There’s a certain irony in all this that is not lost on me, and that I need to share before moving on:
When I was younger and still in school, there was one thing I dreaded more than anything else (aside from reading in class) – showing up with a different haircut.
The thought of everyone acknowledging and judging how I had changed my appearance.
It wouldn’t matter one bit to me if all I got were compliments. I wasn’t about that. I didn’t want the attention. Not for changing my appearance. I didn’t want it to be a thing, at all.
It was something that truly bothered me about the idea that other people would think that I thought my new look was great. I can’t explain it and I don’t really know why, but this thought was horrifying to me.
I wanted it over with.
I just needed to cut my hair. It had gotten too long. It was never a statement. Never a conscious “new look”. I was never one of those kids to dye my hair or get a trendy haircut in any way. I just did what I had to do and wanted “the reveal” to be over as soon as possible.
Perhaps it’s related to never wanting to come across as pretentious?
I don’t know what it is, to be honest, but I still have it.
I was even nervous about dropping my kids off to kindergarten the other day, anticipating comments about my newly shaved face. So, writing about my changed appearance in such a dramatic fashion is definitely something I never saw myself doing.
But here we are.
For now.
Because soon I will be somewhere else, and this is what I wanted to let you know with this.
My wife has been denied residency in Sweden and has been ordered to return to the United States. The Swedish Migration Agency has decided to separate us as a family, in the kind of cruel manor that only human bureaucracy is able to conjure up.
With this decision, the dream died. The money we had for a house will now have to cover plane tickets, Airbnbs, trains, taxis, backpacks, insurance and whatever else we would need traveling around in countries where we can be together.
We are leaving the north.
All of us.
I will not be making videos from my little studio here in our bedroom anymore.
In fact, I’m not sure how and how often I will be able to make videos during our exodus. I certainly won’t have any guitars available. I can’t really bring all my gear as we need to travel lightly. Especially with children and with no home base to keep it all at.
I will try my best to make videos and keep this thing going, no matter where we are.
Ultimately, if you watch my videos and want to stick around for this thing we are trying to do together, I feel like I owe you an explanation. That’s kind of what this boils down to, and that’s mostly why I’m sharing all this.
An explanation, essentially, for why everything is about to look very different.
And also why I might not put out videos for a while, why I stopped doing guitar videos and can’t put out any guitar-based songs, why my audio might be different or why the overall vibe has changed.
I will try my best to still make the best videos I am capable of. I am in this for the long run.
But it will undoubtedly affect what I’m trying to achieve here for the rest of 2022 (and probably longer).
It’s affecting my whole family tremendously, as you can imagine.
But I’ve been around long enough to know that there is great truth in all the clichés about how new doors open after old ones have been closed.
I’m convinced we can only ever truly grow from being challenged and tested, and I definitely know that things in life can turn out to be something else entirely from what they initially seemed.
So, although it is hard, something good will come out of this experience.
How could it not enrich our lives, once this is all behind us?
I just consider myself blessed that we are able to keep our family together through something like this, and that we have the opportunity to travel as one family while we wait out a new application.
Lastly, I just want to say that if you made it this far, I am very grateful that you took the time out of your day to read this text.
It means a lot to me. To us.
I hope I get to see you in the next video, or in the comments down below. Whoever you are, I would love to hear from you.
Thank you for being a part of this.
I hope you’re well.
Until next time.
Bye bye.
Song of the week: Fleetwood Mac – Man of the World
Write on!