Moved From New York City to Sweden; My Work and Personal Life Improved

It was a cold February night when our Brooklyn apartment building caught on fire.

I was half-asleep, but woke up to the sound of glass shattering and the smell of smoke. My now-husband, Ben, and I scrambled for our shoes and followed our 75-pound golden retriever toward the peephole.

Given the thickness of the smoke, I started mentally calculating how we’d get our dog down the fire escape in a backpack. At that moment, the realization crystallized: We were, in a figurative sense, burned out. We needed space.

About a month later, Ben received a call from an old colleague about a work opportunity at a pizza-and-wine bar in Tylösand, a beach town on Sweden’s west coast. As a chef, the experience sounded exciting to him, and we also saw this as our opportunity to try somewhere new.

That’s why, weeks later, we found ourselves vacuum-sealing most of our clothes, giving away what we didn’t need, and subletting our apartment — not knowing how long we’d be abroad.

A month later, we arrived just in time for Midsommar (and no, not the A24 version). Sweden welcomed us with nearly 18 hours of daylight and wildflowers everywhere.

It felt almost too idyllic to be real. After hopping between Boston and New York for nearly a decade, I couldn’t believe this had become our new normal.

The pace here has completely changed the way I view work

Almost as soon as I arrived, life seemed to slow down. The shift in environment didn’t just recalibrate my nervous system, but also how I thought about ambition, burnout, and boundaries.

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In New York, I felt like I was always running — commuting to a 6 a.m. workout, rushing to meet friends after a client call, standing shoulder to shoulder on the subway. It was exhilarating, but also claustrophobic.

Here, I work remotely on East Coast time, so I’m usually at my laptop from 3 to 11 p.m. locally. Yes, I’m sometimes up late when meeting with someone on the West Coast, but it’s worth it. Ben works those same hours most days, so we get to spend mornings together.

It might sound counterintuitive that I have better work-life boundaries with such late nights, but I love that I get a full day before I even sign on to work.

Without the scaffolding of my old day-to-day routine, I’ve been able to get back to my favorite hobbies like playing tennis, reading smutty books on the beach, and just appreciating the simple things.

There are parts of city life that I miss, but I needed the shift in lifestyle

Soon after arriving here, I learned about lagom, the Swedish idea of “just enough.” In contrast to New York’s always-on, rushed cadence, lagom is about balance: savored meals, communal gatherings, and daily life that feels abundant without ever feeling overwhelming.

One Saturday, I attended a barbecue where everyone brought something homemade. I joined a dance lesson in the driveway led by an attendee and stayed until midnight.

It struck me how different it felt from the last event I’d gone to in New York — a PR breakfast where everyone dressed up and every conversation centered on our careers. So much of my social life there felt like work in disguise.

At events in Sweden, I’ve felt like people want to know who I am outside of my professional life. That shift made me realize how much I’d been rushing through interactions and missing out on meaningful conversations.

I miss the energy of New York and my friends there, but I also love spending slow mornings meandering the meadow with my dog, going for a cold ocean swim, and having the time and space to write a novel.

I’ve picked up habits that I’ll bring back to the US

A month into living in Sweden, Ben proposed under a big birch tree at our favorite place for fika, a Swedish ritual of slowing down over coffee and something sweet. We got married a few weeks later.

When we first arrived here, we thought we might apply for residency and make Sweden a long-term home. Once we were confronted with the process of extending our stay, though, we knew this chapter would have to stay temporary.

We’ve chosen to keep the coast close by moving to Maine instead of returning to a larger US city. It won’t be Sweden, but we’ll hopefully carry the rituals we picked up there, from slower mornings to bathrobes on the beach.

Even though our time in Sweden is coming to an end, it taught me that life doesn’t have to be all acceleration — and that just enough can be more than enough.