It’s always interesting when big changes come up in your life and you have (some) time to see them coming and reflect on them. Sadly, that’s not what I was able to do with my move to the Hague. Everything happened so fast that I have been just too preoccupied to think about anything.
I started looking for apartments in the Hague in mid-April. Within two weeks I found TWO apartments that I felt strongly enough about to sign contracts for. That was a bit of a mistake, and it cost me a one hour of Dutch lawyer time and a stupidity tax to get out of one of the contracts, but in the end everything worked out and the keys were in my hand on the 6th of May.
I planned my entire move in about three days, and executed it over the next four all while I was finishing my In-Company Project (which is equivalent to a thesis) for MBA school. Tomorrow a few people will help me load a rental truck in Dordrecht with all my wordly possessions, my father in law (who was kind enough to drive from Belgium to help me out) will drive the truck to the Hague where a different group of people will help me unload it, and that will be it. From tomorrow night onward I will be sleeping in a different room, in a different apartment, in a different city, almost exactly one month after Ann went to the States.
Weird.
Occasionally, over the past few days, I have looked around and felt nostalgic for the life that I had at Merwekade 98. While Dordrecht may not be the largest, most cosmopolitan town you could live in, the old quarter had a lot of charm, and with the beautiful weather of the past few days I have been taking my run around the town and standing out on the embankment looking at the junction of the rivers and the boats going by and actually feeling wistful that I won’t have the beautiful view 
from the tip of the island to look at any more.
The closest I can come to is when you are graduating high school, and you know that everything is going to change, and you are looking forward to the excitement of everything new, but you suddenly are sad because you know a chapter of your life is closing and you will never be able to go back.
When thoughts like those start to weigh on me I remember somethign I read in film school from an interview with Steven Spielberg: “Movies don’t have a beginning, middle and end. They have a beginning that just keeps beginning.”
Tomorrow I sleep in a new home. A new beginning. And the only thing I know is, it won’t be the last.
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