plans

People seemed to pick up on the fact that shit got serious really fast between me and Liam, and this whole "living in separate countries" thing is something I get a lot of questions about. To be honest, I've never seen that as a problem, just something exciting that will automatically send both of us on new adventures. But since you're asking: yes, there's a plan. And I initially wrote this blog post to tell you about the plan. But it became a love letter instead.

I'm in the UK, and I'm staying here for most of the summer. My decision has bothered some of my friends. "But he'll be at work? Are you just going to sit at home waiting for him to come home all day? What about the crazy travel-filled summers you always have?".

What people don't realise, is that this is what most of my work life looks like. I'm home alone, all day, every weekday, all year round except for when I travel. I do my photography work. I write arrangements for my choir. I take walks. I do my accounting. I answer e-mails. I research new music. I practise my singing (though, in all honesty, not as much as I should). I run errands. I write in my journal. I make phone calls. I do laundry. I take naps.

And then, in the evening, I do everything else: teach singing lessons or rehearsals with my choirs, go dancing, have meetings, rehearse with bands or other projects.

So being home alone all day, working away at any of my projects, is exactly how I choose to spend my days. The difference is that this summer I get to spend my evenings and weekends with Liam.


And what about the travelling? Well, obviously, I'll do some of that: I'm going back home to Sweden once, and I have tickets to London and Edinburgh booked as well, and of course I won't let a summer pass without hiking in the Swedish mountains. But there will for sure be a lot less of it than usual. And Liam was worried that I'd be giving up too much of what's important to me, to spend time here with him.

Here's the thing: after the joyous intensity and muchness of this spring, I need to be still. In one place. (At least mostly.) There was nothing in me, when I started thinking about summer, that yearned for a summer like last year (read about that here). I just want to be still.


And there is no place I'd rather be still, than with Liam. Because everything is better with him. Because we've decided that we want to go to sleep together every night and wake up together every morning. Because I never thought there could be a love like this; not just for me, but for anyone, anyone at all.

It's not uncomplicated: I will miss my friends, family and the Swedish summer. (They don't go swimming in the UK! Like at all ever!!!) But I had to trust my gut feeling, like I always do, and when I turned to that, it was easy: Just thinking about spending my summer here (and we've been thinking about it since February) made my heart light up. I have learned in my 33 years that I can always follow that feeling, and trust it.


For a person as emotional as I am, I've been fairly level-headed about love, before. I knew that nobody's perfect and no one has everything, that relationships are hard and you have to compromise and make sacrifices. And within the first few weeks of every relationship I've ever been in, I've found something that's made me feel "if this particular thing doesn't change, this can't last". But we can work on that, I thought; I'll compromise, nobody's perfect, everything takes work. And then, when we've broken up, sometimes years later, it’s always been over that particular thing that I saw right from the start. That thing that I thought I could live with, that we could work through, that could change. Most of the time, that thing was communication.

There’s nothing like that with Liam. I want it all.

I do understand theoretically, that he wouldn't be everyone's first choice. (Though how could he not be, because he's perfect.) But I still feel like life is really unfair for all the people who don't get to be with him. To be honest, there aren't enough men like Liam to go around, and this particularly fine specimen has chosen me, in the same way that I've chosen him - a very active choice, every day.

And I know now, that if this ever breaks, I will never settle for anything less than this. If this breaks, I will have to find something as wonderful and rich as this, or I'll stay single. I'll be single, living a rich life with the most wonderful friends in the world, my work, my travels and my life, rather than going into something less than this just because society dictates that we’re somehow less (most especially women) without a partner. I will never ever accept something that's anything less than this, now that I've had it. The days of "if it wasn't you it would be someone else" are over. This is the complete opposite of that. If it's not Liam, I don't want it.

But it is Liam.


photo by Cheeky Rastall photography

So - to answer your questions about plans ...
Short-term plan: Summer in the UK.
Medium-term plan: There is one, and I'm so excited about what my life is going to look like a year from now, but I'll wait a little longer to tell you more.
Long-term plan: We intend to spend our lives together. Where in the world matters less.

Biréli Lagrène & Sylvain Luc | Time After Time