Just after college, I followed my Dutchman to the NL. What was meant to be a six-month stay turned into twelve fabulous and cold years. The family and I moved back to the States a few years ago, but that doesn’t mean I’m done making fun of those crazy Dutch.
My adventures in Wonderland
I’d only been living in the Netherlands for a few months, and already I was the source of much envy.
“I’m so jealous!” my friends stateside would sigh. “Your life is so amazing.”
Admittedly, maybe I did exaggerate just a little, playing up the good parts, embellishing the stories and embroidering them with colorful details. And on paper, my life sure did look fabulous. After all, even though the Dutchman and I were on a tight budget, we were taking full advantage of the NL’s central location and planning a string of mini-vacations that consisted of a map, a duffel bag and a Eurail pass. Sunning on the Cote d’Azur and riding a gondola through Venice and skiing in the Alps. Day trips to Belgium and Germany and visits to quaint, teeny places I never even knew existed in the NL. My life was like a fabulous, extended European vacation.
Except that it wasn’t. This was my new life, not a vacation. And while the mini-vacations were all indeed fabulous, inevitably, they would come to an end and I would be forced back to reality.
Turns out moving to the NL was the easy part. Actually staying was so much harder.
And the reality of my new life was much less fabulous than I let on to anyone back home. It was like I’d landed in an alternate universe. Fell down a rabbit hole. Entered a twilight zone. Where up is down and east is west. Where the natives speak a strange tongue and have strange habits and customs. Where even the most mundane of occurrences (hey, look! a squirrel!) is interesting or funny or confusing.
Navigating this new universe was exhausting. Every night, I would literally collapse into bed, my head spinning, my throat sore from all the gutteral sounds it was suddenly required to make, my brain spent. But then the next day, I would get up and do it all over again, and again and again, until finally one day my alternate universe became my new normal and the NL became the place I called home.
It was hard, but I did it, and between you and me, I think I’m pretty awesome because of it. It is the one accomplishment I’m most proud of, that most shaped who I am today. My defining moment. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take a lot of time and tears and an endless well of patience to adjust, but once I stopped mourning the life I gave up and started responding to the new opportunity I had been given, I learned to love my life in the NL. Ultimately, it was a lesson in priorities, and in the important things in life.
Because being with the person you love most in the world? Now that’s an amazing life.
