Moving Abroad Is Only Cool Until You Actually Live There. How status disappears.

“Wow, you actually live in Spain.”

I’ve heard that quite a lot by now.

“I’d love to do that someday.”

“I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Brave of you to actually do it.”

In the Netherlands, living in Spain sounds like an achievement.

An adventure.

A kind of proof that you’re not living life entirely by the standard rulebook.

But there’s something funny about moving abroad:

it’s mainly a status symbol until you actually do it.

Because once you’re here, it’s simply your life.

You’re just one of many foreigners.

No one here knows about your career in the Netherlands.

Even on your fancy VanMoof, you can still get absolutely flattened by traffic.

A Volvo is mainly a car that’s too big for Spanish parking spaces.

Forget the Quooker, because the tap water tastes like chlorine.

And your beautiful business-casual wardrobe?

Good luck with that at 33°C and 82% humidity.

You’re a beginner again.

You have to figure out how things work. Learn the language. Meet new people. Find your way around a new system.

And after a few weeks, The Big Adventure is simply:

doing groceries, paying taxes, calling a plumber and wondering why they still haven’t shown up.

And then there’s the other side.

From the Netherlands, it can look romantic: a foreigner following their dream.

From here, you’re also part of something more complicated.

You bring money. You spend money. Maybe you buy or rent a house.

That’s good for the economy.

But when more and more people move here from abroad, house prices rise too.

For you, buying a house in a beautiful Spanish village might be a dream.

For someone who was born there, that same development can mean they can no longer afford to live there themselves.

Your dream can be someone else’s problem at the same time.

That takes some of the shine off it.

And maybe that’s a good thing.

Because what happens when the status symbol disappears?

When no one is impressed anymore?

When “living in Spain” is no longer something you do, but simply where you live?

Then an interesting question remains:

Who are you when your surroundings no longer confirm the story you had about yourself?

Maybe that’s the unexpected gift of starting over. (And a nightmare for others.)

Discovering that your old status wasn’t as important as you thought.

You are not your job.

Not your house.

Not your income.

Not the country you live in.

You’re someone trying to figure out:

Who am I here, actually?

Me with some friends during a sunrise walk. Everyone has moved abroad at least once, so no one is "special" in that matter. And also the sun didn't come out;)