Completely hot: so many Dutch people prefer to live abroad

My sister texts me a photo of a cup of coffee and as we always joke, she adds that this costs six dollars, those few sips of warm milk with caffeine.

She is in New York for her work and we always get expensive to-go coffees, no matter which city we are in. Preferably together, but usually that has to be without each other, because unfortunately: busy lives. It costs us, what will it be, about ninety euros a month. No exaggeration. Every day a coffee of about three euros and you're there. Oops. But I laugh and send a photo of a coffee in a mint green cup back at work: a frugal day for me. She is somewhere between 180th and Broadway, I am being good in Mokum and yet we talk to each other with the greatest ease. Last night she was on that plane and now she is sipping coffee on the trendiest streets of the world, among trendy people. In that trendy city that I have often visited and that I miss so much now, but yes, a pregnant belly of eight kilos, that doesn't travel so well. I am jealous, that’s for sure, but it also makes me happy.

Because the world is a lot smaller nowadays than it used to be, as my sister shows once again with that eternally repeated joke. That’s a good thing too, because some things are stupid. Like friends who decide that the Netherlands is too small. And then houses they go, for that career overseas. For love. For experience, adventure, a new start.

More than half a million Dutch people live abroad – so there’s a good chance you’re in the same boat as I am. At least 16 percent of people leave for a new job, 24 percent because they are so fed up with Holland. Because of the weather or the hurried mentality, something like that. Men and young people under 30 are the most likely to pack their bags. Emigrating for fun is in vogue. Only 50 percent of people come back to live in the Netherlands. I think it’s great for everyone, don’t get me wrong, but a little less great for those at home.

Because it’s not cozy. Very much so. Because you want some things, some people, some friendships, to never change. If you’ve known each other since your early teenage years you hardly remember what it’s like not to live near each other. Do you suddenly have to start skyping, writing, emailing? Just dropping by in Africa isn’t possible. I want to keep drinking coffee with you, as it should be, I think. But you don’t say that out loud. Because leaving is already hard enough for the person themselves.

What is the hardest part? In the past, we would go away for half a year, take a big trip, do an internship abroad. That was all temporary. One friend was away for half a year for volunteer work, another with a backpack traveling the world for a year, the next friend learning Spanish for a year in Seville or Barcelona. No problem. Everyone would eventually come back with sun-tanned, droopy legs to our regular pub. But now we are grown up. Now it is later. And it is serious. Now we are embarking on adult adventures that suddenly feel very, very definitive. Now moving abroad might be for good. And that, dear people, is just stupid.

Go for it, friend. I am proud.