My soul country

Tuesday 9 February 2016


Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you are all having a good week so far. We went back to the Netherlands for the weekend, and now back into some sort of routine. Mr MiH spent 5 years of his life out there (and I a mere 6 months) - before we got married (although it was close, as we only moved in together a week before our wedding). We still have friends out there, in fact my brother now lives there - so as you can see plenty to get on with. 



Whilst I was out there, I started to play 'what if...?' I am not keen on playing that game, especially now - because well, you know there is no point in discussing what if .. because, yes, everything will be different if... Anyhow it reminded me that at some point Mr MiH and I were discussing actually living in the Netherlands, him sticking to his job, and me finding one - and buying a house, we already had views on one. As you can see we were ready to make the commitment. But it was not to be, and I was the one who stayed in the UK job, and Mr MiH who found a job back here. It has been busy in the last 5 years, and I never had time to reflect on what if... 


Could the Netherlands be my soul country? I knew the UK was my soul country - the country you want to live in even though you might not be able to speak the language properly and knowing that your parents would (utterly) disapprove. I knew when I was 16/17. I moved across when I was 19. It was the right thing to do, I saw a landscape, and just knew it was the one I had seen in my vision. And I gave up everything in France - not that there was a lot to give up, my studies mainly, and made a life for myself in Britain. I was given the opportunity and I took it. 


Even after what happened to Leo, I did not regret living my decision. As you can imagine, I received a lot of (unhelpful) comments telling me that it would not have happened had I been in another country (mainly France). In fact it had happened, I researched  the topic extensively, and there are similar cases to ours. It does make it better (at all), it just means it could have happened elsewhere. 


So have I missed the opportunity of a lifetime not sticking with the Netherlands, and giving up at the first hurdle - was it my soul country? It was really appealing - I love the sea, the water - this is a country according to my own heart. We had many friends nearby, we had a life out there (we did not in London). Amsterdam is a very exciting city, and yet not as big London and therefore manageable. The pace of life is a bit slower than here near London. But on Sunday I was glad to be back, and it made sense that I gave up after the first hurdle. My soul country is still Great Britain. I asked Mr MiH whether he missed being in the Netherlands, and thought we missed an opportunity. No was his answer, so I suppose we will stick to Britain for the time being!

Have you got a soul country? Did you give up a life to do what feels right?

13 comments:

  1. Lovely for you to have had the experience of living in different countries at different stages of your life. And lovely to revisit too. As regards unhelpful comments, isn't it funny how sometimes people are expert in something they know nothing about?

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  2. I think that it is great that you had an opportunity to live in different countries! However, you should not regret any of your decisions! Every your decision was definitely correct and you could not do anything in different way. My writer from www.one-day-assignment.com says that everything happens on the right time.

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  3. No matter if its country or occupation, you must always do what 'feels' right Nat. We make decisions based on the facts we have available to us at the time and then make that final call on 'what feels right'. And we cannot live with 'what ifs'. That is only for God to know..... Florence (the previous commenter) made a good point about things happening at the right time. We may just need to live a lifetime to know it. Blessings Nat.xx

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  4. You are adventurous. You did what you felt was right at that time. Moving back to the Netherlands could always happen in the future but living in the now is what counts.

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  5. oh, the what if game is a dangerous game indeed. There are so many choices we make, and at any time, can choose to do things very differently. But you are so incredibly fortunate to have choices on where to live! So many don't get choose what country to live in. My husband is British and lived in the UK when we first met, but we decided he would come here to Canada. Every now and then we talk about what it would be like if we lived in the UK... who knows what the years will bring.

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  6. This is such a tough dilemma. But we make all our decisions with only the information that we have available and we're all trying to do our best with that limited knowledge. I also believe that our paths are somewhat malleable, if that makes any sense. There's not necessarily one perfect path that we have to find or we'll never be happy- we can probably live good, healthy lives in many different situations. My personal belief is that you can wonder "what if?" about the future, but it's not so wise to do it looking backwards.

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  7. Home is where the heart is. For me I do like my nationality, culture and Englishness and I am glad to live here. But I wish I had had the chance to travel because of work and the opportunity to work cross culturally as you have had. How wonderful for you and your kids to have the chance to be fully bilingual and to enjoy lots of wider opportunities as they grow.

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  8. Home is where the heart is. For me I do like my nationality, culture and Englishness and I am glad to live here. But I wish I had had the chance to travel because of work and the opportunity to work cross culturally as you have had. How wonderful for you and your kids to have the chance to be fully bilingual and to enjoy lots of wider opportunities as they grow.

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  9. Great reading Nat. I am always wondering what if, but usually retrospectively, which is also just as useless! If I could choose anywhere to live it would be in the mountains somewhere

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  10. Great reading Nat. I am always wondering what if, but usually retrospectively, which is also just as useless! If I could choose anywhere to live it would be in the mountains somewhere

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  11. Whenever I'm in Italy, I get the feeling it is where my soul belongs. But I love to live close to my family and friends. And, being Dutch, I love the fact that my children grow up, being able to go out alone on their bikes discovering the neighbourhood on a really early age. Children of four can cycle "around the block" on their own.

    They are much older now, but that's something I really love about my country.

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  12. I have always always wanted to visit my roots in the UK. perhaps one day I will get there.
    Think of you often ; )

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  13. I have indeed found my soul country... I even like the crazy long Winters here! But that is probably because they build awesomely well-insulated houses here. Now I just have to catch up with the language. XD That being said, I'm glad you are happy where you have chosen to set your roots... The worst is when someone pushes their decision at you so you live the consequences of their decision, unhappily.

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