No Regerts
Coming clean about finding an apartment, interviewing for a job, and rediscovering the power of positive thinking.
I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest…again.
While writing about our trip to Gouda and the house hunting process, we were already waiting for word on an offer we made. As I was explaining the process of finding a place to you, we had already moved onto the crossing of fingers and toes for “the one.”
That kind of hiding my hopes isn’t a new thing for me, and if you’ll indulge me, I’m trying to understand why.
First the good news: our new place is a stone’s throw from the center of Den Haag and fits our needs perfectly with enough space for two adults to work in the home and for two cats to roam (preferably out of earshot between the hours of 23:00 and 7:00)—and it even has the elusive outdoor space!
We scored a showing the same day we inquired and walked away from it to the nearest “place where they serve coffee” (which is not the same thing as a “coffeeshop” in the Netherlands 😉) where we sat and compiled our letter of interest, tax returns, pictures of the cats, and anything else we thought would sweeten the deal.
A couple of days later, we were on FaceTime with my niblings when I saw the email come through to say the owner had accepted our offer. We finished the call without my saying a word about it because something in my mind said I “shouldn’t jinx it.”
Oooo-weee, what’s up with that?
William and I decided we were moving to The Netherlands somewhere around 5:30 AM on November 8th, 2024. We found immigration lawyers to help with our DAFT visa application and put our years of research to work on plane tickets, listing the house, and everything else that came along with such a huge choice. It was several days before I shared the news with my closest relations and friends. I suppose that’s partially like when I embraced baldness: a desire to know my feelings before being having to help others with theirs?
No, it’s more than that.
Growing up, I had an American Girl doll: Samantha Parkington, the rather snooty Victorian era child with taffeta dresses, pinafores, and petticoats. Like the dollhouses and other “girl’s toys” I enjoyed, I knew she wasn’t something to share with the other kids at school; however that did not stop me from making a series of phone calls to the Pleasant Company—once speaking to Pleasant T. herself—to try to encourage them to make a line of American Boy dolls.
I don’t know that I’ve ever told anyone about those phone calls and here I am publishing it on the internet…
When we decided to move by starting William’s business, it meant I would be eligible for a work permit. I’d applied to jobs throughout Europe for preceding two years in the hopes that we might get a Golden Ticket but hundreds of applications yielded one or two screening calls. Having made the move ourselves, I understand why it isn’t common to score a posh relocation package without a particular specialization.
I do, however, think there should be some sort of “citizen swap” lottery where equal numbers could simply change countries…bureaucracy be damned!
After I added a sentence to my cover letter about how my family would be in Rotterdam beginning January 2025, I got my first bite in ages: a product management role a short commute from either our Rotterdam rental or our hopeful settlement in The Hague. I’d been working remotely since before the pandemic and this would be in-person, something I tried to convince myself would be fine. I loved the flexibility of remote work, but surely I was willing to do whatever it took to help us put down roots upon arrival?
The Dutch interview process is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, in the best ways imaginable. The phone screen began with the recruiter essentially saying, “I can see on paper you have the experience we need, I’m far more interested in knowing what kind of person you are because we don’t like assholes.” We had a great conversation about cats and northern Spain and, a few days later, I was delighted to be invited to a second interview to evaluate my cultural fit.
Due to time differences, I found myself on a Teams call at 3:30 AM on my “last Thanksgiving” in the United States. Other than a momentary brain fart easily blamed on the hour, I had a good time…at a job interview in the middle of the night.
Usually, I don’t mention anything until I get an offer because friends and family have the audacity to care and ask follow up questions so I didn’t tell anyone about the process until after that second interview. Much like I was always hesitant to admit when I had a crush or hoped a date would lead to more, the feelings seemed too personal and private to discuss casually. I preferred to hide my hopes, sparing me the pain of acknowledging them lest they be dashed.
Mindfulness expert Dr. Ellen Langer says there’s no point in regret:
I recently wrote a short story on the subject and, while I agree with Dr. Langer, it’s a very natural mental pitfall to imagine that you can see both sides. Yes, you might have had a different life if any number of things had reached a different conclusion, but we don’t know that we would have been happier or more fulfilled by the choices we did not make.
For a lot of my life, I looked for lack and found it everywhere. I viewed myself as unlucky in love which became my reality whereas, from a more objective place of retrospect, my “body count” is a lot higher than makes sense for someone “terminally single.” When William and I were first married (and for several years thereafter), I was focused—to a fault—on the fact that we needed “enough money” on which to live. Motivated by having been in debt before and having clawed my way back, financial stability was something I wasn’t willing to jeopardize.
The trouble with that perspective is that the more I looked for things that weren’t there, the less I saw the things that were.
Following being confirmed by peer interviewers as “not an asshole,” the recruiter invited me to a third round more directly related to the role, though I was still unsure which part of the product ecosystem I’d be managing. Specifying that it needed to be in person, the recruiter was honest in a way that I’ve never experienced as he explained that there was no problem with waiting the six weeks until I arrived in the new year.
Apparently, December is always a wash and no one is ever “ready to go” on January 2nd wherever you go.
When we arrived, I waited until we had the confirmation of our residence information before arranging a time for the in-person interview. Having had a few weeks since I left my US job, I was liking William and my living day to day with only our goals in focus and starting to wonder if this was a good idea. Did I really want to be up every morning to catch a train and spend the day under fluorescent lights between meeting rooms (albeit ones named after famous artists)?
Still, I felt like I “should” go, especially since they’d more or less held the opening for me to get across the Atlantic. I’d prepared a case study but it wasn’t directly tied to the job function. As I worked through it, I was finding myself increasingly lukewarm about the whole idea. To make matters worse, I spent the day before feeling under the weather from what I would only describe as “rehumidifying.”
You see, a Minnesota winter is drier than a desert, and The Netherlands has insanely high humidity (like Minnesota in the summer). My skin has been loving it but my sinuses sure didn’t know how to handle the influx of extra moisture.
A little woozy from cold medicine, I made my way to Delft where I had another wonderful conversation, this time with the hiring manager and the group product manager to join the observability team. If you don’t know what that means, I’m not the right person to explain it to you—believe me. In the conference room named for Salvador Dali (complete with a melting clock), I could tell that I wasn’t quite what they were looking for and, when I left, I felt a bit relieved that I might not have to tell them no after they had been so accommodating.
Besides the worry that the salary wasn’t high enough or that I’d be uncomfortable immersed in an English-speaking but still wholly Dutch office, I found myself becoming more attached to the idea of pursuing my own goals. I’ve made progress here on Substack and I am having FUN writing—to say nothing of being inspired by the incredible stuff others are generating here. I have no idea where this path will take me, but it’s a fair cry more interesting than seeing if I can decrease ticket resolution time or introduce cost-saving measures for server management.
Still, aren’t I “supposed” to “want” a “career path?”
After we signed our part of rental contract for our apartment in Den Haag, it still felt premature to celebrate—we didn’t have the keys, the deal wasn’t fully inked. Sure, we’d paid two months’ rent and a deposit, but my brain wasn’t willing to accept that the good thing was going to happen…until it had. Even on the train to the appointment where everything would be finalized, the nagging voice of doubt kept trying to suggest all the ways it could still fall apart.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
I’ve never experienced anything like the “ceremony of the keys” where we formally began our Dutch rental contract. Meeting both the agent and owner, we took more than 100 pictures to ensure any imperfections were attributed to the condition in which we received it. In greater detail than any other place I have ever lived, the owner explained how to run each of the home’s systems as well as entertaining every one of our “new to this country” questions. They took us on a full walkabout: out the garage door and around to the front entrance to ensure we knew which key opened what and that both sets worked, including the fobs which the agent misheard me say as “thumb” and found hysterical.
I’m delighted to share all this progress with you and yet wonder why I was scared to do so? Aren’t the people who read this interested in hearing about my life? I don’t know why I continue to deny myself and those closest to me—not to mention my dear readers on Substack 🤪—sharing in my excitement. Objectively I know that not every dream comes true, but I’ve begun to wonder if not sharing them has a hand in helping that be the case…
I’d like to pretend my inspiration came from a source as lofty and impressive as Dr. Ellen Langer, but I’m fairly certain it was a TikTok that first invited me to reframe my perspective with a simple phrase: “I’m so lucky, everything works out for me.” Having previously looked for lack and seen it everywhere, I found myself rather embarrassed by the bounty around me when I decided to look for that instead.
The mantra is open-ended because I don’t get to control how and when the working out happens, I only need to trust the fact that everything will. After repeating the phrase a few times back in 2022, I created a note on my phone where I wrote a short list of things I wanted to believe would work out and at the top was moving abroad…followed by a script option for my novel series (book two is coming in April/May).
When William and I began sharing our plans for leaving the US, the responses fit into three categories: “you’re so brave” (well, you could be too!), “I could never” (not with that attitude, no), and “don’t look back” (a daily peep at Reuters proves this was the correct response). Everyone we spoke with was impressed by our preparations and plans, wondering how we’d managed to make all these decisions with such relative ease.
As a reforming control freak, the only way I could face this mountain of uncertainty was because I was coming at it from that new perspective. As Dr. Langer would say, there’s no point in worrying whether each choice we are faced with making will see us opting for the “right one,” we can only make them intentionally, one after the next.
Besides, even tattoos can be removed.
It’s not a one-time lesson. I still find myself trying to avoid Shel Silverstein’s “what-if’s” when they try to crawl inside my mind. I remind myself that my brain is not my friend, it’s the distilled essence of millennia of animal instinct marinated in lived, inherited, and generational trauma.
To help, picture it like that tiny alien surrounded by gears and levers hiding inside the guy’s face in Men In Black.
There’s nothing wrong with trying and failing; there’s only a problem in not trying at all. Every time I have grown stronger, it has stemmed from failure. If I hide my hopes for fear they won’t come true, all I’m doing is increasing the likelihood that I’ll be proven right. I’m letting my mind believe it’s what I want…or letting it convince me that I don’t deserve for good things to happen.
The problem isn’t that I can’t know and control everything, it’s that I used to think I could. We have already made some bad choices had learning opportunities, but I’m no longer interested in worrying over what could have been. I know not every plan will work out the way we think but that’s not the same as failing.
I suspect that is also a huge part of why I’ve continued to play things close to the vest: I prefer to present as wisely certain as opposed to naively hopeful. But life isn’t calculated as a single big decision; it is the measure of millions of small ones, stitched together one after the other.
When the hiring manager called to say they weren’t moving forward with my candidacy, I was relieved and glad we agreed. I declined the traditional Dutch offer of feedback, mostly because we had almost reached IKEA on foot where I was more interested in shopping the floor than hearing how I might have been a better candidate for something I had realized I didn’t really want.
If you don’t like a choice you’ve made, change it. If you don’t think you can, start by telling yourself that’s bullshit. Did you know how to drive a car when you first sat behind the wheel? Were you a wunderkind who stood at eleven months and took your first steps without stumbling?
Mercifully, life has shown me that if I believe good things will come, I have the power to attract them. Now, close your eyes and repeat after me: “I’m so lucky, everything works out for me.”
If you’re only subscribed to the Expat Files, you might miss my other content. In order to not spam your inbox, I’m putting you in charge of the notifications Substack sends you. If you’d like to check them out, click below:
My Fiction newsletter will include flash fiction, chapters from my published books and anything that’s too far from the truth to be considered anecdotal
My Playlists newsletter will occasionally send links to playlists of songs that have come my way, served to inspire me, or are just a darn good bop
My Odds & Ends newsletter is where I’ll put the things that don’t fit into any of the above but struck me as something about which to write
If you create a free Substack account, you’ll be able to subscribe to all of my different content feeds in addition to latest from the Expat Files (see here for help). If you go one step further and join me on the Substack app, you’ll see notes and fun things like cat pictures pop up!
If you enjoy my work, please help me grow!
Interesting read. I'm wondering about the part about a coffeeshop not necessarily being the same as a place to drink coffee in the Netherlands.
"Yes, you might have had a different life if any number of things had reached a different conclusion, but we don’t know that we would have been happier or more fulfilled by the choices we did not make."
How true! How easily we forget this when we get caught in regret over this or that.