The van Putten Diaries

Sometime in the spring of last year, I started waking up every single day with a headache.  It kept me in a fog all day and made me irritable all the time.   After a couple of months, I went to the doctor, who checked my ears and said they were fine.  She recommended physical therapy for my jaw.  So I went to the physical therapist and after several weeks of adjustments and training, my headache was finally better.   Alongside the physical therapy, I started going to get regular massages.  The headache issue was clearly caused by a neck strain I'd gotten at the beginning of the year that affected my jaw in such a way that my whole head suffered. Long story short(ish), I started really trying to take better care of myself last year.  Some of it started in 2024 with some gender-affirming care, but last year was when I really started pushing away all of the other obligations and zoomed in on myself. And it's really gotten me thinking - I am spen...

The Veluwezoom, April 2025 To be perfectly honest, my mental health hasn't been in top form for the last couple of months and I feel really disconnected from the meaningful reflection that I typically like to dedicate some time to with a new calendar year.  The middle of winter is not an ideal time for such activities anyway, in my opinion, but there is value in documenting what I can, when I can, so that I can take it out and have a deeper look when the time is right.   So, let's give it a shot.  How was 2025?  How will I remember 2025 when I look back?  I have no idea.  Let's look at some themes and figure it out together. Guests and Friends We had a lot of visitors this year and also made a lot of new friends.  Nic's mom lived with us for a month in the spring and we had so many wonderful adventures with her - glamping, day trip to the beach, museums, bike rides.  While she was here, we also had 3 other sets of visitors coming and going....

Nowhere is perfect, it's true.  The Netherlands has its flaws just like anywhere else, even though I've spent the last 2 years observing and commenting on almost exclusively positive things.  I thought maybe it was time to gather up some of the negatives. The issue I'm having, however, is that I look at this list and it's contents feel just so inconsequential compared to what we left behind and how much the US has continued to devolve since.  When Nic and I talk amongst ourselves about the negative things we've experienced and observed here, it almost feels like an inside joke.  In the grand scheme of our life experiences, does this thing (insert something from the below list here) actually suck?  No, not often. So, with as genuine of feeling as I can muster and all joking aside, these are the absolute worst things we've encountered so far in The Netherlands (mostly in order of relevance). 1. Smoking I know that I came from a region with a low smoking rate so my...

Hello! It's been a moment since I've settled in to write with purpose and I feel like it's time for me to be more intentional.  As so many new readers find themselves here, it's probably important for me to revisit basics about who I am and what this blog is even about. So , the story with this little blog of mine... When we moved from the Pacific NW to the Netherlands in 2022, I knew I was going to be writing about it for myself and for my kids who would grow up as immigrants.  I also received a whole lot of requests from friends and family to make it public, and so here we are.  I started writing it as an introspective memoir for myself/family and as a resource for people who may want to follow in our footsteps.  Then my NL-based community became interested, so I shared it with them and have tried to incorporate some aspects that they may find interesting from the other side of the puzzle.   And as our life became more settled in the day-to-day here and ...

December 1st marked 2 years since we landed in The Netherlands as fresh immigrants with the intent to stay.  On the one hand, it feels like we've been here forever because we are well established and it feels so right.  On the other, my heartrate still rises and anxiety zips up my spine when I think about Tacoma.  It's not that Tacoma is awful and it's not that I didn't enjoy my time there over the summer.  It's just that, even after 2 years away, I'm still not fully disentangled from it's problems. I'm really not sure how to organize my thoughts on this post, so let's just dive in and see where I end up. Our lifestyle here has become so comfortable and comparatively stress-free.  It is exactly the kind of day-to-day that we were trying to carve out for ourselves in the US, but were blocked by so many things that we had no power to change.  We are happy.  We no longer need a car to get anywhere and we can easily access the rest of Europe. Our kids ar...

We woke up at 04:30 this morning to tune into election results as they swept towards the American west coast, and, while we were definitely sad, we weren't surprised.  One of Nic's first statements was "Well, at least he won't have to resort to violence to steal it."  This has been my biggest train of thought all along - there was likely going to be violence either way.  Violence if he came out behind, violence if he came out ahead.  Violence not just from the Right, also from the Left.  No one was going to fix the broken systems and culture that make up the United States either, so the idea of Harris winning and things being okay wasn't one I subscribed to (just like when Biden won and everyone else seemed to feel relieved). Nic and I went for a long walk just before Wisconsin was called to process our thoughts and feelings together.  I want to record these thoughts for myself, but also to share with you - random reader - in case you want to process this m...

I have a lot to say about our trip to the US, but I'm not feeling eloquent enough to turn it into a nice and coherent thing to read thing.  However, I took excellent notes during the whole trip and I think it would be entertaining to share these one-liners with you. During the car ride from the airport to Tacoma: "I forgot about those really big trees." - David "This is scary." - Miles, while we were on a freeway onramp. I kept looking around and sitting with the feeling that my mom wasn't there anymore. "What was that?!" - David, about the noise a car made while it revved its engine. "It's a flipped over white ship made of tires. Really big." - Miles about the Tacoma Dome. In Tacoma: This latte cost $5.99 omg. The political yard signs were less loud - more green, more unique blues, less red. "I recognize that park, but just a little." - David while driving past People's Park for the first time. Continuing the theme that...