Tea, Conversation and Decision
(c) Martin Richards
As we sat down at the kitchen table, with another pot of tea and clean cups, we realised that we had been having this conversation on and off for quite some time, and we had been dancing around and putting off the decision. Until now.
Very soon I would have to return to England when my tourist visa ran out, and the question was will AL move to England with me, or shall I get a proper permit and return to Sweden. "Where shall we live together?", in Sweden or in England?
How do you make such decisions? I had never been taught how to make life-changing decisions like this, and now we really needed to come up with something that would give us a good answer.
How would you make such a choice? Talk it over? Yes we had done that over the past weeks and the air was filled with things that we had said, hopes and fears, possibilities and challenges swam in half-memory alongside our opinions and a few facts. It had all been said, and we were no closer to a decision. There were too many factors, too much emotion, too many words.
We needed a way to make a decision. What we came up with was simple, graphic, silent and convincing.
We took two sheets of paper, one for me, one for AL. On each sheet we wrote at the top "Sweden" on one side and "England" on the other. Then we spent some time on our own writing down the advantages, on the right, and disadvantages, on the left, of moving to and living in each country. The aim was to empty out and summarise all the conversations that we had had during the past weeks and months.
The result? I showed my paper to AL, with all my reasons for moving to England and all my thoughts and fears about being in Sweden.
And AL did the same. And when I saw her paper for England. I knew what was the decision was going to be. On the page she had listed all the reasons for moving to England... none.
So that's why I moved to Sweden.
How? That's another story.
More
As we sat down at the kitchen table, with another pot of tea and clean cups, we realised that we had been having this conversation on and off for quite some time, and we had been dancing around and putting off the decision. Until now.
Very soon I would have to return to England when my tourist visa ran out, and the question was will AL move to England with me, or shall I get a proper permit and return to Sweden. "Where shall we live together?", in Sweden or in England?
How do you make such decisions? I had never been taught how to make life-changing decisions like this, and now we really needed to come up with something that would give us a good answer.
How would you make such a choice? Talk it over? Yes we had done that over the past weeks and the air was filled with things that we had said, hopes and fears, possibilities and challenges swam in half-memory alongside our opinions and a few facts. It had all been said, and we were no closer to a decision. There were too many factors, too much emotion, too many words.
We needed a way to make a decision. What we came up with was simple, graphic, silent and convincing.
We took two sheets of paper, one for me, one for AL. On each sheet we wrote at the top "Sweden" on one side and "England" on the other. Then we spent some time on our own writing down the advantages, on the right, and disadvantages, on the left, of moving to and living in each country. The aim was to empty out and summarise all the conversations that we had had during the past weeks and months.
The result? I showed my paper to AL, with all my reasons for moving to England and all my thoughts and fears about being in Sweden.
And AL did the same. And when I saw her paper for England. I knew what was the decision was going to be. On the page she had listed all the reasons for moving to England... none.
So that's why I moved to Sweden.
How? That's another story.
More
