2025 Year in Review

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.  It was remarkably not too overwhelming, though obviously quite busy.

In July, one of my close friends and his family moved to the Netherlands from the US.  The 3 of them lived with us during the period of transition before they had their own housing.  Another remarkable feat - having 7 people and 2 dogs in our 97 square meter (~1100 square feet) house was manageable for those 3-weeks.  They now live down the street and the kids are now close friends.

They weren't the only Americans who made the move this year and now feature in our regular Leiden life.  We have become close with one family who we were introduced to online before their move and who we have helped get settled.  Another family we have become recently acquainted with through the others, and all 4 of our families are now tied together a bit.  We expect another friend-of-a-friend to arrive in March as well.  

These are far from the only new arrivals from the US this year, in Leiden or to the Netherlands more generally, as I'm sure you can imagine.  We reached our 3-year mark since immigrating this winter and I have never heard so many American accents in the off season through the city.  We have met several other groups in passing, and a colleague of mine even met a family from the North End of Tacoma who had moved to her city this year.

I think, perhaps, this may be the most defining theme of 2025.

Travels

We did have a truly wonderful year for travel.  In February, we visited Sevilla, Spain and I fell in love.  I think Spain might be the place I go back to over and over through the rest of my life for the language, the sunshine, the culture, the view.  We only saw a small portion, but I was barely off the plane before I felt like I'd landed somewhere truly marvelous.  

In April, we visited the Veluwezoom again, the glamping location we have made our tradition to visit annually since we moved.  This year we brought Nic's mom, which offered some flexibility for new adventures and it was lovely to share our chosen spot with her.  

In August, we returned to Paris to stay with our friends who live there most summers.  Paris itself was never my top choice of cities to return to, but it's certainly growing on me and we absolutley adore the chance to spend time with these delightful friends each year.  This trip, we adventured to Fontainebleau and enjoyed some of the French landscape outside of the city.

In October, I took the kids back to the northeastern bit of Belgium to the holiday park that they fell in love with last year.  They will always have a week off in the autum during Nic's busiest season, so each year we have gone on adventures without him.  Returning to a familiar spot was really nice, even if the magic of the massive indoor water park had diminished slightly as it lost its novelty.

We finally made it to Germany in December just before Christmas.  Cologne itself was difficult to get a grasp of in only 2 nights, but we certainly had a great time at the Christmas markets and ice skating at the open rink in the city center.  I unknowingly booked us a place to stay in the queer district of what I now know is one of the queerest cities in Germany, so that was extremely cozy.  We stumbled upon a burlesque show at the queer Christmas market as well and made a new fan - "MOM, they have SUCH FANCY SHOES!"  (If you're confused about why our kids would be at a burlesque show, please note that the US is the one with conservative views on this among countries in the West.  The whole first row of this show was made up of kids.)

Personal Growth (professional too)

Starting around March, I had a headache all day, every day, for several months.  Yet another doctor told me there seemed to be nothing wrong with my ear, but they made a new recommendation - physical therapy for my jaw.  This worked, eventually, and I now have the tools to take better care of my TMJ on my own.

This whole scenario sparked a need to focus on myself.  I sought answers (again) to my IBS and hit a dead end (again).  I spent the fair weather days getting back into the routine of exercise and recovering from the rough prior winter.  I shifted my mindset to accept that massage is a part of regular healthcare for my body and my new massage therapist has been working through the 2.5 years of neglect.  I'm also beginning shortly with a personal trainer.

Last week, I reached out to a therapist.  It's been a long time since I've been in therapy, even longer since I've been medicated, but I'm hopeful.  As previously mentioned, it hasn't been a great time these last couple of months and I need some help sorting through the last... decade?... of nonsense that I've allowed myself to endure without adequate support.  We'll see.

On a professional note, I was promoted and have spent the last half year learning/building a new role.  It's going fine, with lots of new content to learn as well as resurrecting many of the leadership-based skills that have been enjoying a break during my immigration and transition to the Dutch workforce.  I'm very curious about what 2026 has in store for me in this context.  I also plan to begin an executive MBA program in 2027 which I am really excited about.

These Kids

They are 7.5 and 10 years old now and becoming cooler by the day.  They have, of course, gone through more growth than any of us and it's been a joy to watch.  I am so proud of the people they are.  I would like to interview them again for this blog since it's been so long and then you can hear from them directly.  For now, a brief recap on some of their shared accomplishments this year.

Both kids-

• Earned their swim diplomas, which take several years to earn and are essentially required here since we are so constantly surrounded by water.  
• Earned their own house keys so they can be free in the world and then bring themselves home.  One of the kids has literally never lost a key, the other... well... he's trying and already made huge progress to earn the house key in the first place.  
• Joined different scouts troops, one doing land scouting and the other water scouting where he spent the summer learning to sail.  As part of scouts, they've taken multiple camping trips without us and marched in the city parade. 
• Ran a 6.7km "race" around the perimiter of the city as part of an annual community event.  Their times were spectacular and Davy is already talking about training for the next one.
• Have continued learning 3rd languages of their own volition, on and off over the last couple of years.  This year, Miles did Vietnamese for a while before reverting back to French.  Davy has started Spanish.  They're both fully fluent in Dutch and English and we are constatly having conversations about language, how they are related to each other and evolve, the cultures that go with them.  These kids are so engaged in ideas of globalization, it's marvelous.

Moving On

We sold our house in the US this year.  It feels like a small thing now that it's been several months, but I also suspect that's my self-defence mechanism springing into life and suppressing all of the feels about saying goodbye.  That house meant so much to me, to us.  But it was definitely time to let someone else love it.  We have no intention of moving back to the US and now we're looking forward to using that money to continue investing in our future here.  

Since we immigrated, there have been several huge goodbyes to process and that grief is still strong with more goodbyes always on the horizon.  I suspect I will have a lot of this to discuss with my future therapist.

And on that note, I'll end this with a "Happy Birthday" shoutout to my Mom, who would have turned 84 today.  She keeps popping into my thoughts 1.5 years after her death and kind of hope that will never change.