Between my three-year-old son, my day job as an assistant professor at the university, my evening job as a software developer, and my night shift writing my Ph.D. dissertation, life was... full. Overflowing, really. I didn’t have much time for existential questions, just enough for caffeine and deadlines.
Each morning, I’d drink my strong, necessary coffee and flip through the Capital newspaper. One day, an ad caught my eye:
“Nokia is looking for software engineers specialized in distributed systems and object-oriented programming. Interviews in Bucharest in March.”
I read it once. Then again.
I was writing my Ph.D. on distributed systems.
I was teaching object-oriented programming during the day.
I was coding in C++ at night.
I turned to my husband and said, joking, “Hey—these guys are literally looking for me.”
He barely glanced at the paper before replying, “You need to apply. Immediately.”
I laughed. It was a joke.
But he was dead serious.
--
October 1st, just ten days after I turned thirty, I stood in the Helsinki airport, waiting for my luggage.
The belt was moving slowly. Empty.
I’ve always liked airports, the movement, the soft hum of voices, the sense of transition. But something felt... strange. Off.
I looked around. People were standing nearby, talking. But I couldn’t hear anything. Not a word. Just silence.
For a moment, I panicked.
Were they whispering? Was something wrong with my hearing? Was I having a stroke?
And then I understood.
This was Finland.
The place I was moving to. A country I knew almost nothing about. A world of silence. A world I didn’t yet recognize.
Life, with all its noise and warmth and familiarity, was behind me.
Now, I would have to learn how to hear differently.
I would have to learn how to listen to silence.
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