We Are Moving To The Netherlands!

When one door closes, another door opens. Is it not how the saying goes? I don’t know but it does certainly feel like this. At the end of January this year, I said to Nicolas that I want to move to the Netherlands and that would be a cool adventure. I don’t know why I said that and why I picked the Netherlands specifically. Fast forward to August, we have sold our home and other belongings and we are en route to the other side of the ocean. Be careful what you are wishing for, right?

Sometimes life takes interesting turns. Unexpected ones too. Two years ago, almost to the date, we moved to the United Kingdom for Nicolas’ work. Because it was in the middle of Covid pandemic and I was pregnant, we made a hard decision to head back to Canada for the birth of our daughter. I don’t regret us coming back at that time. I think it was a good learning experience on how not to do things. We did not fully commit to the move – we did not sell our house and did not take Sherlock right away as we wanted to see if we liked it first. As I like to say, we had one foot in a skate and one foot in a ski. Try having fun that way!

Last year, I started feeling that I am ready for a change and I knew that Nicolas has a dream to live in Europe for some time so I told him he should apply for some jobs there. I don’t think he took it too seriously at that time because he was starting to think that it was too late for changes like this in life. I am going to put a side note here to say that I hate when people say that because first, it is never too late for anything and second, you should never give up on something that you feel like to want to accomplish in your life. If anything, after a few rough years of depression and war in Ukraine, I am sure exactly of that one thing. Anyhow, he also said it would be hard to find a company that would sponsor him but he did apply for a position in the Netherlands. They initially did not consider his application because they were looking for a Dutch speaker but they could not find anyone. A few months later, they contacted him again and after a few rounds of interviews, offered him a position.

I won’t lie if I would say that the decision to move was easy. We had hours and hours of discussions – it is hard to give things up when you had so many processes and routines set up. We had a wonderful nanny who loved Sofia, I finally became Canadian and my suffering with paperwork was over, we had a nice home and car and family not too far. It is definitely not a bad life to have. But there is always a “but”.

We knew that this is an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime so we had to try it out. For me, personally, I think that I could not really answer the question “What’s is next?”. I made lists of pros and cons and pondered for a while about things and then my coach asked if I am deciding with my head or my heart. I think my life philosophy is not to get too comfortable because when you do, you lose focus and a sense of adventure. My parents often ask me why I can’t just stop. I don’t know, I just feel this incredible unquenchable curiosity about the world and I have to be honest about it with myself. It becomes so fascinating, intriguing, and exciting when you open yourself up to new adventures. Anyhow, we made a decision to go.

It has been a lot of work so far with selling our home and our car and wrapping up our belonging to ship over. I am really grateful for how our families came together to help us out – my mother-in-law took Sofia for two weeks so that I can pack and my father flew in from Europe to help me with “heavy lifting” while Nicolas is sorting out everything in the Netherlands before I fly in with Sofia and Sherlock. They have all been amazing and I am so grateful.

I have no idea where this adventure will take us – maybe it will all go to pieces or maybe we will have the time of our lives, who knows. I am ready for it though. Let’s have some fun.

Here are some random pictures of Sofia at the beach. She is also having fun!