My Great Great Grandfather’s Big Mistake in Sweden!

 

A few years ago my family started researching our genealogy, and I found out that my great great grandfather, John Ogren, was from Sweden. I have since come to the conclusion that it was Mr. Ogren’s biggest mistake leaving Sweden, and I have made it my life’s mission to get back to Sweden at all costs. If I can’t live there, a visit to the country seems like a great place to start.

Don’t get me wrong- America isn’t a bad place. My family has made a decent life here and I’m sure John Ogren had his reasons for moving here. Call it wanderlust, but when I realized I had roots in a place far away from me, I developed an intense longing to know more about Sweden. It became an obsession, and I’ll say that I know far more about Swedish culture than anyone in my life realizes. I’ve gone into locally owned bookstores to dig up books written in Swedish, as is evidenced by the picture above. I treasure these little pieces of Sweden and hold onto them as promises of what is to come.

The idea of Sweden inspires me; when I think of Sweden I envision mundane but educational PBS-like television shows that their cable is chalk full of. In fact, most Swedes are avid fans of American culture, which only adds layers of irony onto the situation of me wanting to move there.

Sweden’s blue colored,  yellow striped flag evokes to my mind concepts like Swedish Neutrality, a policy of avoiding wars of all cost, something that the current country I live in has made no point of avoiding, much to the general country’s dismay.

Then there is  Melodifestivalen, a music contest of Swedish artists that I can only describe as a much smaller and more modest version of American Idol. This contest is the perfect representation of  the Swedish phrase “lagom”, a word that has no direct English translation but roughly means ‘not too little, not too much’. Lagom is a philosophy that most swedes strive to live their life by. Contrast this against America’s desire for the bigger and better, and you can see why so many Swedes like John Ogren would desire the life of an American and vice versa.

I believe that everyone has an idea in their head of where they would be ‘happier’. It doesn’t always have to be somewhere exotic and far away. Some people have dreams of moving to New York City or a quiet town in Iowa. One of my cousins has Irish genealogy and  has been fascinated with bagpipes and Irish styled pubs longer than I can keep track of. We all pick a place that could be better than our current situation- and we all have our reasons for doing it.

For so long, I have beaten myself up for not fitting the American stereotypes. I have never been a fast talking business woman, nor patriotic and sports loving. Throughout my life, it was always more appealing to retreat to a corner of the room and try not to draw any attention to myself. I have always hated conflict. These are things that my culture has made me feel ashamed of, things that I have always thought I should grow out of. My dreams of Sweden and one day visiting there have encouraged me to be more myself. I realize that the world is my oyster and that certain parts of the oyster are more welcoming to people of my general disposition than others are.

In many ways, Sweden is a part of who I am, since it is where my family came from originally. It is also a part of me because it has become a dream of mine to return to the place that some of my ancestors called home. I am a recluse; I never much leave the house except to fulfill my duties of being a full time college student and to grab the occasional coffee that will keep me up all night studying. Though I generally dislike going anywhere too far from home, the idea of visiting Sweden invigorates me and makes me think one day, when I have the money saved up, I may be brave enough to step on that plane and watch the forest covered hills from the airplane window as the craft swoops onto the landing strip. I imagine myself stepping off of that plane and reveling in the progress I’ve made from being such a homebody.

 

I may have never been to the destination that I so dream of traveling to, but it’s the idea of traveling there that keeps me going. Maybe that’s how my Great Great Grandfather John Ogren felt about America.

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