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  • Writer: Wendy
    Wendy
  • May 7, 2021
  • 4 min read

Its been almost 5 weeks since I last wrote a blog. We had just past the 100 days left at that point and now its already only 56 days left:-(. There have been many moments the past weeks that I wanted to write a blog but every time there was a reason not to go sit down and do it. The main reason that was part of it every time though is that I get sad when I write about leaving, And also I don't want to repeat myself the whole time. There have been moments that I finally thought I was gonna sit down and write and than life happened and the days just flew by.


As everything gets a bit more normal with the kids in school and myself being able to help out more at school with lunches, time is going so fast. Also a lot more was possible lately with my work, so that really picked up too. Add to that all the moving stuff and all the things that we still want to do while here and you have a recipe of getting up in the morning, running around like a crazy person during the day, putting the kids to bed and falling asleep myself. That is....if I am lucky, because with the leaving date coming closer, there is also stress added, which does not help with my sleep unfortunately.


Everywhere I go people ask how we are doing, if we are excited to go back and telling us that they are so excited for us. Everyone is so sweet, but maybe it is good to tell here what the situation is exactly. Because to be really honest, we are excited to see everyone in Holland again, but at this moment we are not always excited to go back. Someone said it perfectly a bit ago. "When the leaving date is still far away, you are excited about the future. But when the time of leaving comes closer, you are focused more at what you will leave behind."


Some people have asked if it is bittersweet and it really is, mixed feelings all the time. And the hard part is to explain that both feelings can be present beside each other. What I mean is that we are very excited that we will go see our family and friends in Holland again, especially as it has been 2 years by now that we've seen them, some even longer ago. But, with us leaving Raynham, this chapter in our Van Egmond book, will officially end. Our life here will be over forever and that is hard, unimaginable hard. Many people that we see on a daily basis we will not see anymore or talk to anymore and that makes us really sad. We are and have been very happy in Raynham over the past 4 years. We all did great socially, in school, at work and we loved meeting each and everyone in Raynham as pretty much everyone has been so very welcoming to us from the very beginning that we arrived.


We are gonna say good bye to our life as we know it here and especially for the kids it is hard to imagine how life will be for them in Holland. They were still so little, especially Pim.


Will we be ok? Of course we will! We are absolutely certain that we will be. We are gonna make the best out of the situation, live through the heartaches and then build ourselves a fine life back in Holland. We don't doubt for a second that everything will work out. I mean, when we came here we didn't know anyone or anything and the kids didn't speak a word English and look how we did! So no doubts there, but it will be different. And mostly, wé are different from when we left. Erik and I changed. We are happy that we live in 2021 with all the technology, being able to connect with the other side of the world as if they would be on the other side of town. We were able to still be a part of peoples lives in Holland and our family and friends there have been a big part of our lives while living here. So they know we are not the same anymore. But they are not either...so we will for sure have to figure ourselves out there again and that will take some time, but we will get there. And then, thank goodness, technology makes it possible to stay connected with our friends here in Raynham! Redefining relationships, from a distance. Definitely always challenging, but also a beautiful process as we have experienced before.


Oh boy...heavy topic today. But than again, this is right now how our life feels. We can barely imagine that we will up in the air in only 8 weeks. Especially as we have so many things planned still in the coming weeks, even a week vacation. I'm almost thinking: how is that even possible in 8 weeks?


Time will fly by but we are enjoying every single minute of our last weeks here!

Maybe next time I will tell you more about the fun things we are doing and that we have planned!


XO



 
 
 
  • Writer: Wendy
    Wendy
  • Mar 29, 2021
  • 5 min read

Last week it was only 100 days until we leave. That sounds like a lot! But now try 14 weeks, that sounds ridiculously short and that makes me so sad:-( The low point last week was booking our tickets. We have known all the time we would eventually be leaving, we even knew around what time, we have been planning everything for months already, but boy did it hit hard when we paid for the tickets. I cried for a whole day and I still get emotional when I think about it.


Yes, it is our own choice to move back, it was always meant to be temporary to begin with. And initially we were supposed to only stay 2 years, which turned into 4 years pretty much overnight it seems. But that really doesn’t make it any easier. It is like breaking up a relationship, it is your choice, but it still makes you so sad it will end:-(


The other day I looked up the numbers from the kids, how much they have grown since we arrived here. Nynke grew over 20 cm and Pim even more then 22 cm. We haven’t checked for the last 5 months, so it might even be more. I sure am almost looking my daughter straight in her eyes when she stands next to me. I think within a year she will have passed me.


Not only in length did they grow, they are turning in these amazing little/big creatures, with their own opinion and their own humor, and their own emotions. Last week I wrote a Dutch blog totally out of my comfort zone. I wrote how proud I am on how we did all this the past 4 years. We all grew so much, as a person, as a family, in our work, at school. Everyone of us did in their own way. And I am so proud of what we all achieved. That is not something you would normally just say out loud, let alone write it in a blog on the World Wide Web for everyone to see. I don’t want people to think that I’m arrogant. But I do think in general that it would be a good thing for everyone to be more proud at ourselves than we are used to doing. Just take a minute and look at how you are getting through this Pandemic. Everyone in their own way and everyone with their own struggles, but we’re all doing it one way or another. And we should be proud of the little things we accomplish and/or achieve, especially during these trying times.


But anyways, back to ourselves here. One of the things that I am so terribly proud of is concerning Nynke. She did something so selfless last week. In order to go back to school per April 5th there needed to be another class formed in 5th grade. And the school was asking for volunteers, so that they wouldn’t have to appoint anyone if not necessary. Nynke came up to me and said she wanted to volunteer to go to the new class. When we asked her why, she said that she doesn’t really mind to switch and if there wouldn’t be enough volunteers, some kids would be really sad if they would be picked. And with her volunteering, she said, at least that would be one kid less being sad. And that from a kid that has to make a huge move in three months, not only going to a new school again, but moving to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Erik and I are beyond proud of her and also feel confident that she will be doing awesome wherever she will be placed in the world really!


I know so many people that have said that they could never do what we did. Leave everything and everyone behind. And now we are doing it again. And my answer is always that you can do anything you want. So maybe the better question for that would be if you would be open to do anything like it, not if you can do it. And then of course, if you have a partner, it is not only your choice. Erik and I were lucky enough wanting to take the plunge together. We didn’t know that we wanted this until about 10 years in our relationship. Only then we started talking about it and then we were also lucky to be able to do this.


As I might have written about before, not everyone understands or knows how hard it is for Europeans to come and live in Amerika. It is not that you can decide one day that you want to come over to Amerika and you just hop on a plane and build a live here. We realize very well that we have been so very lucky that we got this opportunity. Of course we took the initial initiative ourselves by putting out there at Erik's job that we were open to relocation, but then we were extremely lucky that Erik has this special knowledge that they really needed here in Amerika in his company. And that was only the beginning of a very long, bureaucratic and very stressful process that took a good year of preparation on our part and on Erik's company before we found out half May 2017 that we were granted a visa. It wasn't until that moment we knew for sure we would be able to go. Two months later we stepped foot on the airplane with the kids after a very emotional good bye to our loved ones.


So, of course it is not that easy to just pick up your kids and partner and just do what we did and also, it is not for everyone as everyone is different and has different dreams. But I do want to say that it all starts with dreams and then with setting the first steps towards that dream. It is often not about the goal itself, it really is the road towards the goal. We are not even near our end dreams for our family. Moving back to the Netherlands is not our dream, but also staying in Amerika is not our dream, no matter how much we love to live in both places and how much we love the people in those places. We haven’t set our next dream yet, even though we have some thoughts and will work towards creating a new dream together. But for now we will first enjoy the last few months in our beloved Raynham and with our wonderful friends as much as possible. And then we are gonna cry our eyes out when we set foot on the plane after saying good bye to our friends and self chosen family here. And then, after we are reunited with our family and friends in Holland we are gonna build us another wonderful life there. When we have settled back into everything we are sure that there will be room again for new dreams, big or little!


We are not even near ready to leave all this behind, but we will be and we will make our new adventure one to remember as much as our Amerika adventure!


XO




 
 
 
  • Writer: Wendy
    Wendy
  • Mar 26, 2021
  • 1 min read

Updated: Mar 29, 2021

And we just booked our tickets. Can't stop crying :-( Wil be continued!


XO



 
 
 
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