Fabulous Facebook

Isn't it funny how some people unexpectedly make their way into your life, and before you know it they're such an integral part of it that you can't remember a time when they weren't?

My friend Ida is one of those people. We met in London through Facebook of all places. Before we met for a coffee the first time, I can't say that I had very high expectations. And even after our first "date" at a café in Covent Garden, I wasn't completely convinced. Although I did think she was nice, I never expected her to now be one of my best friends. Turns out, that was one successful blind date.

During all our evening walks around pretty much all of central London, we talked a lot about Sweden, how much we missed certain things and how so many English things bothered us. Single glazed windows, two taps in the sink, wall to wall carpet and countless other things were a constant source of irritation for us. And although I had always had every intention of staying in London pretty much forever, because of our constant talk about the greatness that is Sweden, I started to feel homesick and could think of no reasons to stay, and reasons aplenty to move back home.

So I did, and after five months I finally moved to Stockholm, and we both now live here and we're still good friends. We don't see each other as much as we did when I first moved here, mostly because there really isn't much time for it, rather than because we don't want to. We can still talk about most anything, her emails keep me alive at work, and I've met few people who share so many of my values as she does.

I still can't say that I've completely come to terms with being back in Sweden, I guess that the orignial desire of returning to what was known and comfortable has changed into a restlessness that I should have known was residing deep within me. It's always been there, so why did I think that it had somehow mysteriously disappeared, just because for a second I thought that I wanted to move home and settle down?

I don't know what's going to happen with my life yet, where I'm going to end up, if I'm leaving or if I'll just stay put. But I do know that I think it's pretty amazing that a girl that I met through Facebook about a year and a half ago in London is now one of my best friends in Stockholm.

Funny, how life turns out.