Welcome to Holland

Photo Credit: Aaron Burden on Unsplash.com

Many years ago, this little essay was included in the newsletter at the School for the Deaf in Washington State. The author was listed as Carol Turkington. I'm not sure how it came to be included in my pile of papers, but whenever I would thin them out, this one would get saved. May her message help you as you adjust to whatever Holland-type situation your baby has brought you too. 

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like you're planning a vacation to Italy. You're all excited. You get a whole bunch of guidebooks, you learn a few phrases so you can get around, and then it comes time to pack your bags and head for the airport.

Only when you land, the stewardess says, ‘Welcome to Holland.” 

You look at one another in disbelief and shock, saying “Holland? What are you talking about? I signed up for Italy!”

But they explain there’s been a change of plans and that you've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

“But I don’t know anything about Holland!” you say. "I don’t want to stay!”

But stay you do. You go out and buy some new guidebooks, you learn some new phrases and you meet people you never knew existed. The important thing is that you are not in a slum full of pestilence and famine. You're simply in a different place that you had planned. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy, but after you've been there a little while and you have a chance to catch your breath, you begin  to discover that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland has Rembrandts.

But everyone else you know is busy coming and going from Italy. They're all bragging about what a great time they had there and for the rest of your life, you’ll say, “Yes, that’s what I had planned.” 

The pain of that will never, ever go away. 

You have to accept that pain, because the loss of that dream, the loss of that plan, is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to go to Italy, you will never be free to enjoy the very special, very lovely things about Holland.