Notes from the Netherlands.

I'm writing this week's letter from a hotel room in Eindhoven, Netherlands, looking out my window at a steady stream of bicycles going by. 

There are men in suits, boys with athletic equipment strapped to their backs, parents with babies, women carrying groceries. People who appear to be approximately 87 years old casually biking somewhere and inspiring me to no end to stay active.

Craig has worked for a Dutch company for over 25 years and has been here countless times for work, but somehow this is the first time I've ever come with him.

For many of those years, there were very real reasons why I stayed home. Devon and Aubrey were just 5 and 2  when he first started to come here. Then there were school schedules and sports and pets and the house and my business and all the other things that made disappearing to the Netherlands for a couple of weeks seem completely impractical. Until there wasn’t. 

The kids are grown now, I can work from pretty much anywhere and when this trip came up, for the first time, I thought...why not?

So here I am!

And the funny thing is, this doesn't really feel like a vacation. It just feels a little like I'm living in another country for two weeks.

Craig leaves for work in the morning and I make my coffee and work from our hotel room. Eventually I head out, usually walking into town or to the grocery store, which is legitimately one of my favorite things to do in another country. Forget the tourist attractions, I always make a beeline to the nearest grocery store!

I've been picking up healthy things for myself, wandering around town and averaging about 15,000 steps a day without really trying because walking and biking are just how people get around here. Maybe I'll wander into a museum one afternoon. I've been thinking about finding a yoga class. Sometimes I sit somewhere with an iced coffee and write.

I don't really have an agenda which is really weird for me.

In the evenings, Craig and I have been sneaking in little adventures of our own. We went to Nuenen, where Van Gogh lived and worked for a few years. We found the parsonage he lived in and painted and the church his father preached in. And of course, because we're in the Netherlands, we had to track down a windmill. 😂 We spent our first day wandering around Amsterdam, and this weekend we're heading to Bruges, Belgium.

Nothing particularly dramatic has happened.There have been no stunning revelations. I have not been riding a bicycle alongside a Dutch canal and suddenly discovered the meaning of life at 53.

It's just been quiet and good. I think my nervous system has needed that more than I realized.

The thing about routine

If you've been reading these letters for a while, you probably know that I really love my routines.

Yeah, definitely more than the average person. 😂

I like knowing when I'm going to work out, when I'm going to write, what I'm eating, when I'm going to walk, what Sunday looks like, what Monday looks like. I've spent years figuring out the rhythms that make me feel good, and because they make me feel good, I can get pretty protective of them and cranky without them.

Which means I love to travel once I'm actually THERE. 

It's the leaving that I have a problem with.

Because a two-week trip doesn't just mean packing a suitcase. It means disrupting everything I've carefully arranged at home. I'm starting to realize that the very routines that help keep me grounded can also make it surprisingly easy for me to get stuck in a rut.

I take the same walks, go to the same grocery store, drive the same roads, eat many of the same foods, and go to the same restaurants. I move through my days in ways that are so familiar that I don't really have to think about most of them anymore.

There's nothing wrong with that, as a matter of fact, I think there's a lot that's right about it. Routine gives our days structure and gives my nervous system a sense of safety that I honestly need.

But being here has reminded me that maybe I need the opposite sometimes too.

Maybe I need novelty.

There's actually some interesting research around this. Our brains don't lose the ability to learn and form new memories just because we're getting older. Research on cognitive aging shows that continuing to have new experiences can be good for our brains.

Which makes intuitive sense to me when I think about how different my brain feels here. At home, I can walk into my grocery store half asleep and know exactly where everything is. Here, grocery shopping requires my full attention (and Google Translate). 

Is this coffee creamer? Where are the eggs? Ah, they’re not refrigerated. Oh, ok, kip means chicken.  

I have to figure out how to get places, I'm constantly hearing another language all around me. I'm noticing architecture and street signs and bicycles and what people are wearing and how they interact and what they eat for lunch.

Even something as ordinary as getting coffee requires a tiny bit more attention.

My life gets unfamiliar enough that I start paying attention to it again.

And I think that's one of the things travel does for me that I don't always realize I need.

It doesn't have to be Holland

Obviously, I'm very aware that go live in the Netherlands for two weeks while your husband works is not exactly an accessible wellness tip. 😂

But I don't actually think Holland is the point. I think the point is getting out of our usual grooves once in a while.

It can be as simple as taking a different walking route, trying the pottery class you've driven past 100 times, going to the museum in your own city that you keep saying you should visit. Cooking something you've never made, sitting in a coffee shop you've never been to, taking a day trip somewhere an hour away. Learning something you're terrible at, going somewhere alone that you normally wouldn't.

Maybe we need to deliberately give ourselves experiences we can't do entirely on autopilot.

And I've been thinking about this especially as I get older because I can see how easy it would be for me to become really good at my own life.

I know what I like now. I know what works for me and I definitely know what doesn't. I've finally figured out how I like to exercise and eat and work and spend my time. There is something really awesome about knowing yourself well enough to create a life that fits you.

I don't want to blow that up.

I'll be ridiculously happy to get back to my own bed, my kitchen, my weights, my walks and all of my normal routines when this trip is over.

But I do think I want to get a little less precious about them.

Because sometimes the routines I create to make myself feel safe can also make it harder for me to say yes to the very experiences that make me feel most alive. Maybe I need both.

I need the routines that ground me AND I need the occasional thing that interrupts them.

I need home, and I need to leave it sometimes. I need familiar, and I need enough unfamiliar to wake me back up. I need days when I know exactly what's coming next, and apparently I also need days when I'm standing in a Dutch grocery store trying to figure out what I'm buying for lunch. 😂

Maybe especially as I get older, I don't want to become so good at creating a comfortable life that I stop surprising myself inside of it.

So no, I haven't had some huge life-changing revelation over here.

I'm working, writing, walking (a lot), watching bicycles go by outside my window and thoroughly enjoying weather that feels a little like fall instead of the surface of the sun in Texas.

Maybe I'll take that yoga class or go to a museum. Maybe I'll discover another grocery store that I absolutely need to investigate for research purposes, of course. 😂

And this weekend, Craig and I will go see somewhere I've never seen before.

I don't know that I'll come home changed.

But I already know I'll come home really glad that this time, when I had the chance to go, I said yes.

This Week's Breadcrumb 🌱

Where could you add a little novelty to your life right now?

Nothing dramatic, you do not need to book a flight to Europe. 😂

What's one small thing that would take you slightly outside your usual routine?

A different route, a class, a restaurant, a day trip, a new recipe, a museum. Something you've always wondered about but never tried.

Or maybe you've done something lately that got you out of your usual groove and made you feel a little more awake to your own life.

What's one way you could surprise yourself this week?

And this week, instead of sending your Breadcrumb only to me, bring it into Community. I want to hear your ideas, but I also want all of us to be able to steal them from each other. 😂

SHARE YOUR BREADCRUMB IN COMMUNITY 🌱

In Community This Week ❤️

Well, it didn't take us long to get into the real stuff. 😂

We've already been talking about menopause, libido, what we're loving lately, and some of the things nobody seems to prepare us for in this stage of life.

And honestly, this is exactly what I hoped would happen.

Sometimes we're talking about the big stuff and sometimes somebody just needs a recommendation. Women are introducing themselves, sharing their own experiences, answering each other and already having those oh thank God, it's not just me moments.

I've had several moments this week where I've thought, YES. This is why I wanted us out of my inbox and into a room together.

If you've been thinking about joining us, we're still brand new, which makes this such a fun time to come in. You're not walking into a group where everyone already knows each other and you're the new kid trying to figure out where to sit. We're all still pulling up our chairs.

You can join for $9/month, or become a Founding Member for $49 for your entire first year through September 30.

Come introduce yourself, share this week's Breadcrumb, jump into a conversation or just look around for a while.

There's no catching up required.

PULL UP A CHAIR ❤️

xo

Alison