About: maartje

Name:maartje
2008-04-03 07:05:12
http://www.maartjegoodeve.com
Profile

Posts by maartje:

Leaving Ireland

I was 26 when I went to Ireland. It involved an airplane flight and after a lovely holiday, on my way out of Ireland I cried uncontrollably. I thought it was weird because well, I hadn’t been in Ireland for long (2 weeks), I wasn’t leaving anyone behind there… my reaction bemused me.

Ireland was the very first country that I had visited on my own accord, not dictated by my family or anyone else. I went to Ireland because I wanted to. I was leaving because my time there was up, not because I was moving elsewhere. There was no excitement about where I would go next - I knew to what I was returning.

This was my moment to grieve for all the times I was forced to uproot, pack up and move due to my father’s job. There was no place then to grieve or express myself negatively as a child - the move was beyond my control. I was used to denying the grief and focus on what was coming next; it was a pattern, so that my sanity could survive in the craziness of moving every so often.

I enjoyed my time in Ireland, the traveling, putting the skills that I had learned during my childhood to use and totally immersing myself in the cultural foundations… Aspects of myself that had been dormant for so long, which had moved into a lull of complacency and almost into oblivion after living in Holland for 15 years… I basked in the feeling of nomadism that I experienced while on holiday in a country not far from where I lived, in the safety of knowing I could return within a day if something would go wrong… and now this newly rekindled part of myself would have to be shut down again when back in Holland where I had a steady job, a place to live, friendships and the stability everyone around me deemed so important.

So during that short flight back from Ireland to Holland with a stop-over in Cardiff (Wales), I grieved. I grieved for all the times I left and couldn’t grieve. I grieved for rekindling a part of myself that had to go back into hiding if I was going to be able to live my “well-adjusted” life again. I grieved for the newfound sense of freedom and independence. Everything was on my own terms, as an adult, and ready to come to the surface to be observed, experienced, explored and, over time, healed.

Two months later I left Holland, and moved to the UK. A year later I moved to Canada with my husband, whom I’d met in Ireland during the trip that changed my future, and that reconnected me with the emotions I hadn’t allowed myself as a child.

April 26, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum | 16 Comments 

Adult TCK waving hello

Hi everyone,

I’m Maartje, which is a Dutch name. Non-Dutch people best pronounce it as March with ah at the end. I’m 37 (38 next week) and I live in Canada now. My parents are Dutch and started traveling for my dad’s work (hotels) when I was 4. We lived in Puerto Rico, Florida, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and occasionally stayed in Holland for a few months in between countries until I was 12. I never could settle in Holland, though I ended up staying there until I was 27 when I met my British husband while traveling in Ireland. A year later we moved to Canada where we are raising our two sons who have Dutch, British and Canadian passports.

I’ve been reading along here for a good while now, thanks to Brice’s invaluable efforts in getting this community happening and grooving! Brice, I’ve told you this in email and I’ll tell it to the world: you rock!!

I first heard the term TCK and ATCK about two years ago, and I cried for a good two weeks while reading everything I could put my hands on. It made sense of my world and gave me peace. I’d come to terms with my travel-related quirks already, but to see them in a larger context was so liberating!

I’m married to a very non-TCK partner, for whom it was the first time to move out of his country of origin. It sure has been an interesting journey for us, and what connects us is his openness to the world and to Life, and his eagerness to learn and grow. Our parenting style is unique and from the Canadian cultural perspective somewhat ‘unconventional’, since my parenting and partnering beliefs are not “Dutch” or static. Who I am, who I am as a mother, as a spouse, as a woman… all have been shaped by my childhood and the role models I encountered along the way. Combine that with the British culture my husband is used to, and that makes for an interesting mix. We chose to hold the kids back for a year before starting school so that they had a better sense of self before being immersed into a cultural setting that was not only foreign to them, but also to us. After all, we (my partner and I) are foreigners in a country that our environment considers ‘home’ to our children.

Okay - that’s me in a nutshell, and I am happy to be here, to be inspired and enriched by the vastness of experience and cultural richness you all bring to the table.

April 26, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum | 8 Comments