So where do you live?

It should be an easy question. Just name a city. Or a country, or even a continent.

Even LinkedIn only recognizes one home town. Tell us what one place you live. Period.

Yet, the simple question always ends up with me performing a small essay speech involving life, my work, my life partner and his work, family, friends, past journeys of self-exploration and a lot of other themes.

As we are moving this upcoming week, I’ve received the question a lot, only shaped as “So where are you moving to?”, which again requires a medium length essay.

Physically, we are moving all of our belongings to Oslo. However, I need to be careful with stating “we are moving to Oslo”, as there may be people who will be thrilled by that and then disappointed as they realize I will probably only spend about two weeks there initially. (But I promise solid coffee dating for those two weeks!)

I will then be going to San Diego in three weeks, maybe, for about two months, maybe. (startup life uncertainty!) After the stay in San Diego I will most likely spend some time in Stockholm, maybe or maybe not doing a weekly or biweekly commute to Oslo. Starting this fall I can live more or less wherever I want, of course depending on the progress of the company. Being a startup of course also means the risk of running out of money or momentum, in which case I have absolutely nowhere I need to be.

Then there’s the boyfriend, who is looking for work and any time within the upcoming 5-7 months can be notified about ending up in any or all of the following: Berkeley, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Oslo, Stockholm or Sichuan. Or someplace else.

So when I play out all potential scenarios for the upcoming year or so in my head, my brain usually threatens to explode when having reached only a small percentage of all potential outcomes. So I give up and grab another cup of coffee.

And I changed my LinkedIn location to “Other”.