Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley When you are going to have a baby, its like planning a fabulous vacation to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make all your wonderful plans: the Coliseum, Michelangelos David, the gondolas in Venice. You may even learn some handy phrases in Italian. Its all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, Welcome to Holland. Holland ?!? you say. What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! Im supposed to be in Italy. All my life Ive dreamed of going to Italy, but there has been a change in the flight plan. Theyve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they havent taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. Its just a different place. So you go out and buy new guide books. And you learn a whole new language. And you meet a whole group of people you would never have met. Its just a different place. Its slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after youve been there awhile and you catch your breath, you look around and begin to notice Holland has windmills- and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. For the rest of your life, you will say, Yes, thats where I was supposed to go. Thats what I had planned. And the pain of that will never go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didnt get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, and very lovely things about Holland.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 10:45:33 +0000
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