Everything Has Its Luxury that may also be its Pain.

I learned it the hard way, I share it here so you don’t have to.

Coming into my 7th month of living in Sweden, I now see a lot of things back home as a luxury. I first thought that it could be just a homesick — one that I feel quite often when it’s exam season. But, it kind of hit me every week and I know myself enough to recognize that I have never been homesick for a very long time — and I know this one is not a homesick as well.

I do reflection to reflection, from writing in my diary to turning those writings into drafts for this medium. One day, it hit me: the life I’m living now in Sweden was once a luxury. Now that it is my every day, I am no longer seeing it as a luxury — it’s just common goods. Realizing this is a good thing, and I for sure have to change my perspective again, and this writing is one of my ways of reaffirming my change of perspective.

Sun, Asian staples, Indonesian food, going out for a movie, halal restaurants, the sound of rain, oh you name it. Many of these things exist as a common good back home in Indonesia that we often take for granted — at least for me, I did. Taking the perspective of being home, I then started to realize that what I have in my life now is actually loaded with so many luxuries: fresh air, a walkable city, and every corner of the city is reachable by bike within less than 30 minutes, affordable accessible and readily available everywhere organic fruits and vegetables, good education system, good social security system, etc. The things I see as common goods now are what I used to see as a luxury when I was a corporate girlie hustling and juggling between work and social life in the southern part of Jakarta back in 2023. So it hit me, all of these things I am having now will become a luxury again once I move to another part of the world that does not offer me all of the things I have freely here. And so yes, everywhere has its luxury and pain.

What I see as a luxury now is ironically come also as a pain at the same time. The rare existence of the sun during these winter times (yes, Sweden is still somewhat in winter despite it being March already now) is a pain for a morning person like me because waking up never feels easy these days. The expensive cinema, limited option of halal restaurants, and Lund being a small city are often quite painful for my little city girl inside of me during the weekend because I really miss going out on Saturday night just to eat out and watch a good movie with my husband — now we have to do most of it at home.

However, I understand that once I go home, all that I have now will be the other luxury, and what I see as luxury now will be the common good. The wide options for outdoor activities from hiking, walking along the beachline, or even hunting for aurora will absolutely be very hard to obtain when I’m back in Indonesia. Indonesian food, Asian staples, affordable cafes, cinemas, and halal restaurants everywhere your eyes are directed will be the common goods that make me see my current life in Sweden as a luxury. Ah, confusing.

All of these contemplation and reflection have led me to think that this is it, this is how life is, indeed. Everywhere, whatever it is, has its luxury and pain attached to it at the same time. Everything comes with both good and bad sides — you choose which perspective you would like to amplify, to see more, to connoisseur. As I am a life connoisseur, I said to myself that I should live my life here with the perspective that this is going to end anytime soon, I might go back home anytime soon, and whenever I might be in the next 3 to 5 years, I will absolutely miss these days of living in Lund. At least, no matter how depressing and saddening living in Lund was for the 2019 me, I ended up missing it so much and hence I am back here. So I said, no matter how hard and challenging juggling between life and my master’s study here in Lund, I will one day miss all of these.

While many of the things I have here are common goods, I should start seeing them as a luxury — so I can enjoy them to the fullest. While many of the things I cannot have or deem as hard to obtain as luxuries, I would like to be content with myself to feel enough, to be sufficient, and to connoisseur more of what I already have because it is actually a luxury in another perspective.

Choose your perspective and enjoy more of life. Now I’m off to enjoy the luxury of still relatively long nights that will soon be gone.

xoxo,
Anin