All is Lagom

The thing with going on holiday every summer for me is that I, essentially, am returning home rather than going somewhere new. Don't get me wrong - I would never want to be anywhere else but Sweden in the summer - but it does present a few problems. The stress of living out of a suit case and the added physical impossibility of trying to divide oneself in multiple pieces so we can spend time with everyone aside, coming home to me means exactly that: coming home.
And coming home means that I have just spend a long time doing the opposite: being away.
I think it is one of those inevitable headf***'s that aliens have to deal with, the feeling of always being part of something but not really belonging anywhere in particular. This is a very existential issue, and one not ready to be dealt with on a Wednesday morning before coffee, but there you go:

When I come back to my home country can't help but noticing how easy I fall in to certain behaviors. It has something to do with being comfortable in my own skin. By default I am Swedish and always will be. The "Swedishnes" is programmed in my DNA. At home, I feel myself. It is filmjölk and knäckebröd, moaning over SJ and getting caught up in the election debates. Talking about the Eurovision Song contest (Salem Al Fakir would have done sooooo much better) and the new Kepler novel. The Stieg Larsson phenomenon is a different subject altogether, what did you think? That you'd really be able to fully understand his books if you weren't Swedish? Not that they are anything spectacular, but nonetheless: his legacy belongs to us, and we reserve all rights to criticism or praise.

It's not just about the more trivial aspects of life, of course. There is something about being Swedish that is hard to put your finger on that I feel will never leave me. I think it has to do with "lagom", and that "lagom räcker".
"Lagom", the word exclusive to the Swedish language, which means that something is not too much, not too little, but just perfectly "enough", is the balance that I am always trying to achieve in my life.
I try to eat lagom, sleep lagom, and and have lagom fun.
I think lagom is what makes Swedish people being so beautifully balanced, never over the top, but always present enough. I love Lagom.

No I'm on my way out for a lagom day at the beach and after that I will meet my gorgeous friend and have a lagom mani/pedi followed by lagom amounts of cocktails and gossip afterwards.