How a Global Pandemic Changed My View on Living in Denmark

In March of 2020, my life, like the lives of many others, started to change because of the outbreak of the Corona Virus. I feel that I am one of the lucky ones who hasn’t been infected by the disease and has been able to do my university work from home. Life has changed from what I knew before, but things could be a lot worse. Being a foreigner in a country where my language skills are not the greatest and where I don’t have any close family other than my husband and two children has added a bit of extra emotional strain, but could I really complain? There are many out there with far worse situations, so I needed to stop my bickering and start to look on the bright side. Denmark has been my home for the past four years, and though I haven’t always had a great relationship with it and there have been days that have just downright sucked here, I have to keep things in perspective during times like these.

On March 11th, 2020, the prime minister of Denmark came on the television to address the nation about her thoughts on the corona situation and talk about locking down the country. It was at that moment when my life at home began. There were many ups and downs during those first couple of weeks. I had to learn to juggle my university program, my husband’s work-from-home schedule and the homeschooling schedule for one boy in 3rd grade and one in 1st grade. My head spun most days with all of the work that somehow came out of nowhere, and the added pressures of making this time magical from all of the bragging mothers on Instagram and Facebook really got me stressed. I didn’t have time to make magic. I just needed time to breath for a second.

After spending time in quarantine in my small Danish town with a busy husband and two highly-active boys, I began to realize a few things about myself as well as about my life as an American in Denmark. Some of these thoughts didn’t surprise me, but my overall thoughts on life for the future really showed me that through stressful chaos can come unbelievable clarity. 

Here are the 10 things that I have learned while living through a global pandemic…in Denmark.

1)Why don’t you just shut up!?

The first thing that became very apparent during my time at home was that I should never go into a job as a grief counselor or deal with people who have sensitive personalities like disgruntled/nervous people or those on the brink of physical harm. It might sound odd since I have been a teacher for many years and worked with children for over 20 years, since children and teenagers are usually pretty emotional people at least part of the time. However, I have always been the type of person to live life without a filter. It is a curse; I’m afraid to say, but during times of world-wide hysteria, those with no filter can be quite dangerous. It has made me realize that we are all very different, and that it is best for people (me) with no filter to take a break from all of the chatter on social media. Less is more! For those of you who may have seen me as being insensitive, I’m sorry for not putting myself in your shoes. I guess I kind of suck as a person sometimes. 🙁

It also proves that people can surprise you. People I have known for years suddenly seemed afraid to the point of crying some days when the topic of corona came up. I like to joke way too much, and to these people, joking about corona is like slapping someone’s momma. Lines are quickly drawn in the sand, so it is not as important to know where you stand but where others stand. Take it from someone like me and tread lightly; otherwise you might just get hit with a shoe that once used to go on the foot that is now in your mouth!

2) You bought how much toilet paper?

If this crisis has taught me anything about shopping, it is that I may have actually had a problem with hoarding before this crisis started. I may not have been one of those crazy (#sorrynotsorry) people for buying enough toilet paper to support your neighborhood for the next 20 years, but I never saw a problem before with buying a 10 pound box of frozen chicken breast in the past. Shopping for a “lockdown” situation shouldn’t feel like a normal trip to the grocery store, especially since we normally go to the grocery story every 2 days during a normal, non-pandemic kind of week. I guess, I can’t be pointing fingers and calling people crazy just because they are worried about how they will wipe their butts when I find it comforting always to have enough chicken in my freezer to last us months. Do you know what the real kicker is? I don’t even eat chicken! Figure that one out!

3) I must be germaphobic if I’m the only one washing my hands

The thought of how many bottles of hand sanitizer were sold in the course of one month is astonishing, since I have always been the type of person to carry it wherever I go. Ask my classmates, and they will tell you that I always had it in my bag and used it almost daily. After corona breaks out, you would think it was a Beany Baby back in the early 2000s, or any new toy or item that people just had to have. A fad or trend. In my mind, I must have been someone who was really freaked out about germs if I carried it before the pandemic. Now that people are starting to understand the wonders it can give, I might have to stock up on hand sanitizer when this is all over. Apparently, there are many more nasty people out there than I had thought if this virus started spreading because people weren’t practicing “normal” hygiene habits. Washing with soap is also a pretty good idea, but geez, people! I’ll never look at something as simple as a handshake in quite the same way. Gross! Now I know what to stock up on when there is a zombie apocalypse!

4) Finding my inner Martha Stewart

It shouldn’t surprise me, but I have an inner Martha Stewart. I have been known to sew a thing or two (just check out my projects page on this blog), and I may be known for making delicious chocolate birthday cakes (that’s on the blog too). However, when faced with being in quarantine, I somewhat surprised myself with all of the crafty and homemade things I suddenly had the motivation to create. Not only did I make more sewing projects in the first month of being in lockdown than I had in the past few years, but I also baked more goods, cleaned the house like I was in some type of competition, and even started one of the biggest gardening projects that I think I have ever attempted while living in Denmark.

I loved gardening when I lived in the USA, but for some reason, I had only planted a few things here and there in the backyard of my house in Denmark. Being home for an unlimited amount of time, got me looking at my house as a project. The backyard garden that I had seen everyday out of my bedroom window for over three years and just shrugged my shoulders at was finally getting the attention it deserved. I wasn’t just pulling up weeds and trimming bushes, but I was also clearing out plants to make room for garden boxes, moving plants around to look more designed and introduced more edible plants. I really felt like I was living off of the land or at least that I was hoping to. Being that it was still April, I had some time to find out if it all would work out the way I wanted to. Would I really grow all of my own herbs and lots of my own vegetables this year? Time would tell, but I was pumped to see what I could do!

5) Homeschooling sucks when you work/go to school full-time

I love my kids, but homeschooling sucks. Don’t get me wrong! I love teaching, but the act of teaching two kids in two different grades when I am meant to be in a full-day, college schedule is for the mother-loving birds. I spent the majority of my professional life as an English and German teacher, teaching either American high school or Danish folkeskole, so I am no stranger to the profession. But when I found myself thrust into the job of being my children’s math and Danish teacher (among others), I was ready to pull my hair out. Those wonder moms on Pinterest and Instagram with their perfectly fun lesson ideas can bite me! They are so lucky that they don’t have other things to focus their time on than how to make homeschooling the best experience of their children’s lives. (Insert eye roll!) They don’t know my truth!

6) Not having outside toys is pretty much how you spell DOOM

My husband’s views have always been that our backyard should be a place for the parents to relax, not for the kids to play. Of course, he is not against playing soccer with the boys in the backyard, but when the balls go away, you would never know that children lived in our house. I always thought it would be better for them to have toys, but his rational thinking was that there is always a neighborhood playground nearby that the boys can either walk or ride their bikes to. Having extra stuff in our yard wouldn’t be necessary. Boy, was he wrong!

When you suddenly find yourself living in a lockdown situation, you can go outside for a walk or to be in your backyard, but if you are a child, that doesn’t sound like much fun. To say that things started to get crazy after about a week of quarantine would be an understatement. I was starting to think that the corona virus didn’t seem like such a bad thing when compared to having to spend one more second in the house with my kids. The walls started to close in on all of us, and the boys, especially, really needed to go out and burn off some energy. I can’t imagine what life is like for those living in apartments without any outdoor space. I’ll pour one out for you sorry bastards! That must be rough! My backyard is one of the reasons why I didn’t lose my shi% during the “great quarantine of 2020”.

However, that was only the case because of the additions we made to the backyard. We learned very quickly that what we thought would be a great relief ended up being an even bigger stress. During those first few days of quarantine, the boys were outside for a grand total of 15 minutes, because they quickly decided that there was nothing to do in the backyard, and they were bored. If you would have seen the look I gave my husband, you would have definitely thought that winter was coming. Needless to say, we jumped on the bandwagon of the millions of other people who got into a habit of doing online shopping that month. It was a big, life lesson for all of us. If you have kids, put some mother-loving toys in the backyard!! If you don’t want to do it for them, do it for yourself!! You will be glad you did!

7) Denmark is a great place to live during a crisis

You might think to yourself that living in a crisis doesn’t have any pros, but you’ve got to try to look on the bright side, which of course, is easier to do when you don’t have to worry about finances, health care or your own personal health. The health part is up to you, but it is nice to live in a place where the loss of the other two could be a lot worse.

Let’s put things into perspective…shall we? I am American, and Americans are always so skeptical about what to believe because so many people say different things. I get it! The USA has lots of state officials and city officials telling people different things. Sometimes, it is hard for a country to be unified when it is so large with so many different types of leaders. Denmark is great not just because it is small, but also because it is trusting. They may have local leaders, but they all listen to the prime minister above all else, which I think helps.

Here, we are social democrats, which means that the government takes care of its people, because everyone pays a crap load in taxes. Though it might seem crazy to someone else that Danes pay so much in taxes, they wouldn’t think it was so crazy if they were fired from a job and not have to worry about health insurance. Danes do as they are told, not because they are submissive, but because they know their government will take care of them in times of need. I count my lucky stars that I live in Denmark during this modern plague, and it has actually made me start to see all the country’s flaws as being not that important when I see all I have to gain.

8) Quarantines taught me to find more time to “hygge”

If you know anything about Danish culture, you know they have this thing called “hygge”. Hygge is something that most foreigners or non-Danes think of during the winter months. Let me paint a picture for you. Imagine yourself bundled up with a very expensive animal fur blanket, sipping tea next to a fire as you read from your favorite book, enjoying the quite and “coziness/hygge” of your day. Seriously, every time I think of this, I get a little smirk! Either these people don’t have kids or they’re the millennial, nothing-but-white-walls, modern Danes that annoy me. (No offense to those of you who fit this description! Apparently, I don’t know your truth! You do you, boo!)

Hygge to me, and to most other Danes I know, is a time to relax with or without the ones you love. Being a mom, I can’t imagine having hygge time without my kids. We like to sit on the couch and cuddle as we watch a movie, or we enjoy baking together in our silly chef aprons and chef hats. Other times, we are having dancing parties, playing games, or having a tickle fight. Any Dane would say that they try to practice hygge all year round, and being “stuck” at home during lockdown is the perfect time for hygge. It is not to say that Danes normally practice social distancing because if I can say one thing, it is that they know how to throw some really great dinner parties, but it just means that they value hygge time. This makes social distancing not so awkward, and hence, Danes are good at it.

Through this whole quarantine situation, I have found it much easier to practice hygge, and I even feel that I am a bit better at it. I look forward to more hygge times, and it fits nicely into our days more often. Hygge is more than a time of day; it is a feeling. Some would say that it is of coziness, but I would add that there is also a feeling of love mixed in. Who wouldn’t want to feel that more often? I know I do!

9) Learning to slow down in a Danish way

Ever since I moved to Denmark, I’ve been going at full speed. I thought that having a job and learning the language as fast as possible would make me feel more settled. Instead, it just set me up for stress, which has seemed to linger in the background ever since then. Going from one stressful situation to another hasn’t helped. I wouldn’t say I’m a walking, train wreck because I get things done, but it doesn’t always leave me room for a lot of fun. I don’t know if I would say that being in lockdown has been entirely fun either, but it has put things into perspective. When busy times get in the way, it seems easy to say “not now” or “I’m too busy” to things that come up. However, when you don’t have anywhere to go, that makes a big difference in the “time department”.

Being a full-time student, full-time mom and homeschooling teacher may mean that I’m actually busier now more than ever, but the fact that I don’t ever leave my house makes me feel like I’m on my way to slowing down. Throw in a week of spring break, and it almost feels like we are going at a turtle’s pace. I have to say that I’m glad. My boys are getting bigger everyday, so I’m glad that we have the opportunity to do things together that we wouldn’t normally do. That has been the best thing to take away from all of this. What I didn’t feel I had time for in the past is starting to seem more do-able, and I’m feeling more accomplished and less stressed with my days! It has been okay to sit and have a conversation with my husband or take a walk before dinner. There is nowhere we need to be, so there is no rush.

10) What really matters

With the death tolls around the world rising everyday, I would have to say that I have started to focus more on what really matters! It always seems that I have an endless list of things that I have to do while living in a house that is filled with things that I can’t possibly live without. (Breathe!) When you think about how scary this situation really is and how none of us are guaranteed anything in life, you really start to think of what matters most. This has led me to decluttering rooms and closets that I have had too much anxiety to touch. I had a fear that I would get rid of something only to need it just a short while later. If there was the slightest thought that something could be useful, I couldn’t bare to part with it. It was (is) such a crippling feeling. I wouldn’t say that my house is filled to the brim like someone off of a hoarders’ show (even though you already know I love to buy frozen meats in bulk), but this crisis has taught me that my house may have a few things I could live without.

This led to a bit of a realization that showed me nothing new about life. My family IS most important to me. I’m sure most people would say the same. (My oldest son might say it is his new phone, but I’m trying to work on him to change his thought process. Baby steps!)

I’ve often heard the phrase, “the most important things in life aren’t things….they’re people”. It is one thing to say this and another to really mean it….or to show it. I traded some things for less stress, since being in an organized place helps me focus. Being less stressed helped me to be more open to spur-of-the-moment fun with my boys. We baked more sweets than we had in months, took more walks in the forest and laughed more during our time being “stuck” together. Decluttering a room was just a start, but it helped me declutter my mind as well. I say that this time helped me to be LESS-stressed, because, let’s face it, there were still other factors that gave me stress, but those were mostly the things I couldn’t change. It appeared that I had more work to do , but this whole corona scare helped me to focus on what really mattered the most at that time.

It also helped me start the thinking process of how I wanted to live my life. I am an emotionally cranky person at times. The truth is out. Would I love to change this? You betcha! Will it happen overnight? Not on your life, sister, but I can hope. I could start to think how I would like to live my life after the corona scare is no longer there. There would be no guarantees that life wouldn’t go back to the way it was before this outbreak occurred where life was fully-equipped with a busy schedule, especially for the boys, but there was hope that we would retain more hygge in our lives from the days of lockdown.

After all, it would be great to feel like a success story where I could show that I was someone who gained from this experience, and I don’t mean the extra pounds and slightly higher tolerance to alcohol. As you can see, there is more to my “corona story”!

As I write this, we are unfortunately still experiencing the lockdown in Denmark. I’d like to say the end is near and that our lives will start to go back to “normal” soon, but since I’m an expat, it isn’t just life in Denmark that I’m worried about. I’ve got family back home in the USA who may have harder times ahead of them than what I am experiencing. My thoughts are in so many places! I wish you all good health and safety! It is going to be a bumpy new few months, I’m afraid, with many unforeseen experiences and lots more lockdown. But if I know anything about how life is starting to turn out, I would say that I’m about to get in touch with Denmark much more and hopefully start to feel, without a doubt, that I am home.

What have you learned about yourself from this pandemic situation where you live? Tell me about it in the comments!!

Don’t forget to check out my other posts on living in Denmark in my “Living in Denmark” section of the blog! Thanks for reading!

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