Update from my previous blog post—I did move to the Netherlands. I am currently fortunate to call Maastricht my home. It is such a beautiful little city with a kind of calmness that seeps into you eventually. It has been 8 months of leaving behind a life that I have terribly missed, every day since I arrived here.

My list of good fortunes continues:

• Extremely blessed to have a lovely life partner who made the transition super easy and very comfortable. In our daily roasts of each other, I usually have 90% of the recreation and entertainment I need. For the remainder, there are travels and trips to beautiful cities nearby.
• I found a superb opportunity before moving. While it is not what I was doing back home, it is still in academia, it is something I am decently good at, it is something that is peaceful, it provides an opportunity to improve myself, AND most of all, it allows me to remain independent. I never, for a second, take that for granted. I would have been quite miserable to live with if I had not been working, for I do not know who I would be without a professional identity and the kind of freedom that financial independence brings. And I am lucky to have colleagues who have held their hand out for me in ways more than one and been there for me when it really wasn’t required of them. God willing, I have always been blessed with the best people in my life.
• I am lucky to be living in a country and a continent that is extremely serene and heartful. No matter the season, there is magnanimous beauty to be enjoyed. I usually take 40 minutes to walk back home from office – a journey that takes 20 minutes on foot – because – my way cuts through the park and I end up looking at the same trees and flowers everyday. They look new everyday. It just mesmerizes me. I am aware of the privilege it is to be enjoying clean air and ground, and also the foundations this is built on. But for now – I am focusing on the beauty of it all.
• Something about living here just pushes you to focus more on your health and well-being. I am enjoying my attempts to become a healthier version of myself.
• Most thankful to technology that allows me to be connected to my family and friends back home as if I am there. I would be lost without them, for I am taking my own sweet time to find the same kind of deep and soulful friendships I had back home.

I had never imagined I would one day be an immigrant in a country. But moving here has been a world full of perspectives. This shift in life has turned out to be significantly better than I expected. I have learned more about myself, my strengths both mental and physical, my joys, and my qualms. I have met a different version of myself here – one that I did not know existed but one that I know needs a lot of work. I guess we are always a ‘work in progress’ no matter what stage in life we are.

It has been 8 months of figuring out that nature and solitude can be your best friends when your other friends are halfway across the world; that the ability to flow with life instead of trying to control it comes with mental strength and lots of practice AND God’s grace; that to live with and embrace uncertainty is what adulthood is all about and that you will eventually start to thrive out of your comfort zone—just give yourself some time; and that your roots are as important as your present and a balance between them makes you who you are! It has been 8 months of reaffirmation that home is never a country or a city or an apartment. It is where your people are; it is where your heart is. I have many homes 🙂

Home is a feeling.