Living alone abroad during a pandemic

This post was inspired after I returned to Finland and met some of my old co workers and friends. I talked with them about my time in Stockholm, which was of course wonderful, full of new experiences, but also extremely lonely. It was not like I was living on another time zone than most of my friends, but because of the pandemic I was avoiding public meetings and crowded places, restaurants etc. My friends told me I should also remember to share these feelings and thoughts in my blog, so here it goes.

My extroverted self in the past

I have always seen myself as a social introvert rather than an extrovert who enjoys time alone as well. After these three months I have come to the conclusion that I am indeed more like the latter. Nearly all of my life I have lived with someone or at least I've had a friend very close by. When I moved to study in Turku over 11 years ago I lived alone for nearly a year but I was always with someone; friends, a boyfriend, colleagues. I didn't spend much time home. Then there was about 4 years that I lived together with my partner, a year when I lived upstairs to one of my closest friends and after that I moved to Helsinki.

In Helsinki I also lived alone for two years which were more tough. I got to know many new friends from work who helped me spend my time after work and I was also very busy with hobbies, but I lived alone far from other people. A good experience, but not something I would like to repeat.

After that came the year in Australia. Even though I was travelling alone, I was never alone. Every day I got to meet new people, shared a room with a bunch of other people, went to new places and roamed around. I enjoyed exploring alone, but always got company if I wanted.

When I returned to Finland I already knew I would not be able to go back to living alone. And I needed to live somewhere in the city centre instead of the suburban areas further away. I needed people around me. Which is why I was really happy when I got an opportunity to move in with an old colleague. I stayed in Helsinki living with a roommate for two years.

Being alone is good but being lonely is the worst

I found a beautiful and big apartment from the city centre of Stockholm, just 750 meters away from Gamla Stan and my future office. I rented it from a Finnish-Swedish lady who had been living in Sweden for most of her life and was now moving to live at the countryside but still owned an apartment full of her stuff in Slussen. I was excited for the area and the 62 square meters of the apartment I got completely for myself. What I had forgotten was the quiet and lonely time I was about to experience.

The first weeks went great, but after a month, when I was already settled to my new job, I started realizing how alone I felt. I had one other colleague at the office and we saw each other nearly daily. After work I didn't see anyone. I didn't have many friends in Stockholm, and as it was my own choice to stay out of public places and events because of the pandemic, I didn't make any new friends either. I walked a lot, visited museums, parks and places, but I did everything alone all the time.

The worst bit started when my co worker left to Finland for a couple of weeks and I was spending both the day and the evening alone. I called my friends and family, sent them messages and voice messages so often that I think some of them might have already felt a little irritated but didn't dare to say anything. I didn't have anything to say either. There was no real content in my calls or messages; I just needed to talk with someone about something.

It wasn't all that bad - I had to get creative!

Gladly I did find out about one friend who was living in Stockholm as well. He is one of my old colleagues from Australia, and had moved to Sweden with his girlfriend after his visa had expired. We met a few times and spent time eating, talking and even took a short day trip to Vaxholm. I'll write about that later.

I know it was all my own choice - I could've searched for an apartment with roommates. I could've joined some more dinners, events or I could've gone to restaurants more often, but I didn't want to risk it. I felt I have the responsibility of not spending time in crowds during the pandemic.

It wasn't all bad either - the feelings of loneliness were easily brushed away when I just got myself something to do. I enjoyed the sunny days, art museums and I even learned how to cook some new dishes. I walked so much that I lost a few kilos - which is great! I had more time to think about what things I enjoy, what do I want to concentrate in the future - I even started this blog!

I have come to the conclusion that the best choice for me is what I am doing right now: living with a roommate, a friend, who has a little bit different timetable than I so we both (hopefully she agrees) get to spend time on our own as well as get to enjoy each others company. I don't need to talk all the time, but it is enough that there is someone in the same room doing something on by themselves. But I do enjoy chatting if we both feel like it.

I guess the main difference is that if I get to decide when to spend time or days alone, everything is fine. If spending time alone is involuntary, it starts to get to you - and this is most likely the case for everyone. For me the time period was short but already made me know myself a bit better.

I will definitely write more about the subject of traveling alone and the feelings surrounding it. Right now I wouldn't change these experiences and dreams I have of the future for anything.