The Space Between

It's funny how quickly life can change.

When I wrote my last post (two months ago!), we had just found out that Luke got the job. After so much waiting, everything suddenly felt possible.

What I don't think I fully appreciated at the time was that the waiting wasn't actually over. It had just changed shape. Instead of waiting to hear whether Norway was happening, we found ourselves waiting for visas. Waiting for paperwork. Waiting for approvals. Waiting for timelines. Waiting for answers to questions we didn't even know we needed to ask yet.

And while all that waiting was happening, life became very, very busy.

Somewhere between researching accommodation, preparing the house for sale, sorting through years of accumulated belongings, planning logistics, and trying to keep up with work, school, and everyday life, the last couple of months seem to have disappeared.

People often talk about the excitement of big life changes, and there has absolutely been excitement. But I don't think people talk enough about the sheer exhaustion.

• The kind that comes from carrying a thousand little decisions in your head all at once.

• The kind that comes from living in the space between your current life and your future one.

• The kind that comes from trying to prepare to leave a place while still fully living in it.

Getting the house ready for sale has probably been the biggest part of that. We've lived here for years. This isn't just a house we're selling. It's the backdrop to so many chapters of our lives. Every room seems to hold a memory. As we've decluttered cupboards and packed away pieces of our lives, I've found myself constantly bumping into moments I had forgotten about. School projects. Old photos. Things the boys made when they were little. Tiny reminders of seasons that felt endless at the time and now seem to have passed in the blink of an eye.

It's strange.

For so long, Norway felt like the dream. The future. The thing we were moving towards. Now, for the first time, I find myself paying closer attention to what we're moving from. Not because I'm having second thoughts. Not because I'm any less excited, but because when you know something is changing, you suddenly see it differently.

The ordinary becomes noticeable. The familiar becomes precious.

Even the things you've probably complained about a hundred times somehow take on a little more meaning.

We're still waiting on parts of the process. There are still plenty of unknowns ahead of us. But every now and then, usually when I'm knee-deep in paperwork or standing in a room that has never looked so clean, I get this little moment where it hits me again.

We're actually doing this. Not dreaming about it. Not planning for it. Not hoping for it. Doing it.

And while that feeling is occasionally accompanied by mild panic and an ever-growing to-do list, it's mostly accompanied by gratitude, because this season may be messy and exhausting and a little overwhelming, but it's also the season where the dream quietly becomes reality.

One decision, one form, one box, and one very cluttered garage at a time.

Med kjærlighet og vennlighet (with love and kindness),

Alicia