Welcome to the Netherlands

“Welcome to the Netherlands” is an essay by Emily Pearl Kingsley, a mother of a child with Down syndrome. The piece describes what it feels like when life’s expectations are upended by reality. I first encountered it in the book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and for the next half‑hour I kept thinking about the story: If my current life isn’t what I want, should I “make the best of it” or chase the place I dream of? When faced with things I want to do but keep agonizing over, do I wait until I’m sure before acting, or just “get on the plane no matter what”? I never found definitive answers to those questions, but I think the story raises a worthwhile topic, so I’m sharing it with you.

The original text

When a baby is growing inside you, it’s like planning a wonderful trip to Italy. You’ve bought a stack of travel guides and put together an exciting itinerary: the Colosseum in Rome, Michelangelo’s David, gondolas in Venice… You might even learn a few simple Italian phrases. Everything feels thrilling.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and set off. A few hours later, the plane lands. A crew member walks over and says, “Welcome to the Netherlands.”

“The Netherlands?!” you gasp. “Why the Netherlands? I’m supposed to be going to Italy! I should have arrived in Italy by now. I’ve dreamed of Italy my whole life.”

But the flight plan has changed at the last minute. They’ve decided to stop in the Netherlands, and you have to make the best of it.

The point, however, is that they didn’t take you to some terrifying, disgusting, filthy place riddled with plague, famine, and disease. It’s simply a place that isn’t what you expected.

So you have to get off the plane, buy a new travel guide, and learn an entirely new language. You’ll also meet a group of people you would never have encountered otherwise.

It’s just another country. The pace here is slower than Italy’s, with far less flash. After you’ve spent some time here, you catch your breath and look around, and you’ll notice the Netherlands has windmills, the Netherlands has tulips, the Netherlands even has Rembrandt.

But everyone you know is busy shuttling back and forth to Italy, bragging about how great life is there. In the rest of your life you can only say, “Yes, I was supposed to go there too. I had everything planned.”

And that pain will never, ever, ever, ever disappear… because losing a dream is an incredibly, incredibly huge loss.

However, if you waste your whole life lamenting that you didn’t make it to Italy, you’ll never be able to freely enjoy the uniquely wonderful aspects of the Netherlands.

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Originally written by Estela Young and published in Chinese on 一只产品汪的自白. Translated and edited for DriftSeas with permission.