We've now travelled 3,500 kilometres from Gotland to the Atlantic coast in Spain. In a few hours, we board the ferry to the Canary Islands. And we're not the same people we were when we left Gotland.
Do I miss anything from my old life?
We owned a farm, goats, sheep, a cheesemaking business, and stuff that accumulates over the years. Here's what I miss: NOTHING.
When I asked Magnus what he's missing, he deadpanned, "Getting up at 4:30 to make cheese 17 hours a day." Lina said she misses her houseplants and her bestie. That's it.
The thing is, we started our farm on Gotland with an idealistic dream: carbon-neutral living, showing our kids life outside consumerist culture. We made that happen, but what we learned is that combining ideology with business is too expensive if you also want to eat and breathe. I'm not saying it's impossible. But it was impossible for us at that time.
The impact of our adventure shows up in unexpected ways.
After five years of brutal financial stress on Gotland, being able to buy fresh fruit without panic-calculating the cost, feels like a luxury. But after 15 years of producing our own food, depending 100% on grocery stores feels wrong, like we're completely disconnected from the land now.
Two days into our trip, I realised I had no to-do list. For the first time in years. And I wanted to curl up in a corner and cry. Not because I missed the list, but because the weight we'd been carrying finally started to peel off.
Five weeks into our trip, we walked past a small bar in Spain. We'd walked past dozens of bars. Nothing made this one special. But Magnus and I had the lightbulb moment of "we could actually sit down here."
So we were just sitting, slowly drinking a beer in the afternoon sun, next to a palm tree, the sea not far away. For the first time in over five years, we weren't worried sick. For the first time in nearly a decade, we sat together and didn't need to plan anything.
And a mad laugh burst from me when I realised that I don't have to go back home, only forward. We have no home to go back to. That moment was so freeing, it felt like inhaling deeply after years of trying to breathe through a straw.
Which made me wonder: Is this a midlife crisis?
There's this strange social contract in our culture where we've collectively agreed that mild-to-moderate misery is the price of being a responsible adult. Question it after decades of trying to fit in, and you get pathologised as "going through a midlife crisis." To me, questioning the status quo is the sane response, and going through several "midlife crises" is healthy.
Through all of our ups and downs, the crashes, the ping-ponging between "Freedom, YAY!" and "Shit, we're homeless"— I had our Unravelogue community to lean on: the crying corner moment, the missing-nothing realisation, asking if good planning even matters after it spectacularly failed us.
They shared their own vulnerable moments and difficult life questions. No one judged us for walking away and trying to figure out what the fuck we're actually doing. We share art, rant about politics and white billionaire tech bros, talk about writing, and hang out in our video lounge. It's the cosiest, loveliest little online space.
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So where does that leave us?
I'm not sure if we've escaped the hamster wheel or just got a temporary break. I have twelve months to figure out how to make a living. But good planning doesn't guarantee shit — I learned that after five years of meticulous preparations before even moving to Gotland.
So now we're taking each day as it comes, and strangely, that doesn't make me nervous. We're still travelling and still have no idea if this will work out for us.
But for the first time in a decade, we're not just surviving. We're actually living.
