Zijn er vulkanen in Nederland? Nee, er zijn geen vulkanen in Nederland.

Are there volcanoes in the Netherlands?  No, there are no volcanoes in the Netherlands.

This is one of those gems that DuoLingo threw at me and hit me like a ton of bricks last week.  There aren't any volcanoes.  Nor evergreen trees.  Nor... hills.

We move to the Netherlands in 23 days and the anxiety is real.  Not just because of the logistics of the move or getting rid of almost all of our stuff (we're not really taking anything with us), but mostly it's the awareness that we're probably not coming back.  I've been through transitions like this before, the kind where I start to think "this may be the last time that I ever...", and I've learned that I have to push through without stopping to feel the weight of it until it's passed.  I'm preparing myself to navigate this experience the same way, but it's more difficult to wrap my head around because it's so much bigger.  Even after 2 years of planning, I'm still trying to remind my brain that this isn't a permanent goodbye to the volcanoes, the evergreens, and the Salish Sea.  We'll be back to visit, and if this whole endeavor doesn't work out then we'll be back to stay.

On the other hand, I'm very ready to get out of here.  As a lifelong pessimist when it comes to human nature, particularly sociopolitical issues, I feel like maybe I've always been ready.  I carry an apathy recently that the activist I've always been is struggling to comprehend.  I'm so tired and things feel so helpless.  I don't know what I would be doing or how I would be feeling if we weren't leaving - maybe I'd feel a bit better because there would be something else I would be focusing my attention on.  Maybe this apathy wouldn't exist because I'd have to keep striving.  

Regardless, I don't expect our move to be a magic wand.  When we visited last year, several people said "Well... you know you'll just be leaving behind your U.S. problems and adopting our Dutch problems, right?"  And yes, of course, that's absolutely true - and I can't wait because their problems just seem so unfathomably different and small compared to what we encounter here.  I don't mean to discredit them, but I imagine that the lens that I'll bring over there is similar to the lens that immigrants to the U.S. bring here - sure, there are problems, but have you seen where I've come from?  

I'm holding my skepticism in place and keeping my hopes in check.  I've been trying to observe my thoughts, feel them, sit with them, and analyze them to mentally prepare myself for what's coming.  I've got a list that keeps growing, but I'll share what I've got so far in no particular order:

• I do not expect that things will be perfect.  I expect there to be flaws everywhere and that I'll find things which surprise and maybe concern me as we go, which is all just part of getting to know and diving deep into a new culture.

• I expect to feel very out of place for a long time - too short, too non-binary, too clearly American, etc.

• I expect to feel like a visitor, not an immigrant, for a long time as well.  Like I'm just a long term tourist.  I understand that I will always be an immigrant and likely feel like one no matter how long I stay nor how well I assimilate, but this is something I expect to feel acutely at the beginning.

• I expect to miss more of our culture and our society than I can really prepare myself for.

• I expect the feeling of isolation that I have here to morph and maybe magnify to a different sort of isolated feeling that I can't predict.

• Because of that, I expect my existing friendships to deepen to some degree.

• I expect the kids to need more support than I do up front and then end up okay more quickly than me.

• I expect to find community eventually and to build connections, even though I'm nervous about the unknowns entailed.  In particular, the queer community has been really important to me here and I'm nervous that I either won't find it or won't be able to feel the same connection to it when I get there. 

• I expect myself to have at least one major cultural faux pas that I will learn from and feel embarrassment about for the rest of my life.  Probably more than one, but I'm going to try to tread carefully.

• I hope to fall in love with life to a more tangible degree that's not based on just getting through each day, but I'm trying to not expect it.  I'm keeping my mind and my emotions as open and available as I can so that I can process these experiences and these moments for what they are rather than what I hope for them to be.

• I wonder what sort of outward persona I will have.  For example, I know that I'm slightly different at work vs in public vs at home etc.  We all are, of course.  I just don't know what my interpersonal instincts will be or how they'll affect the ways I engage with people.

• I expect to miss the mountain, the sea, the evergreens desperately.  But I also expect to not miss them as much after a while.  They'll just likely be the things that I feel the most upon arriving in the flat, sea-level, human-centered landscape of the Netherlands.

Sometimes, I think about the move and it really does feel magical, even with my caution in place.  Other times, I feel completely overwhelmed.  I find myself continuing to take life day by day at this point, not only because there's still so much to do and so little time but also because for the first time in my life I'm underemployed by choice and I'm trying to enjoy it.  I've got several months of being able to breathe and focus on my life and my family without a 40-hour a week burden and that in and of itself brings me a feeling of joy.  

Anyway... I'm excited and overwhelmed and emotional and pensive and feeling like I need to start unloading to share my experiences and to give me a solid chronicle to look back on.  And right now, I'm in a cautious state of excitement.

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