My visa renewal and the power of chosen family: a ramble

2023 was weird. Honestly, the 2020s have been weird. I came to the Netherlands in 2015, when I had just recently graduated from high school. I am turning 27 in a week now and I just got my residence permit renewed successfully. Officially, as of now, I stand to live in the Netherlands at least for 5 more years - making my stint come to a whopping 12 years by the time I begin my next immigration procedure (if I don't do a little lekker naturalisatie before that, that is). 

If there's one thing that's kept me going in the past eight years, it's been the quality of my relationships. Esther Perel said it best when she said that the quality of your relationships define the quality of your life (or something like that). The fact is, what makes the experience so wonderful is the people around you, the relationships you build, and the years that solidify beautiful, meaningful connections with the world around you. To relate to people, to be with them in solidarity, well, that's what makes life world living to me. 

This is especially true in the context of us transfers - expats, immigrants, whatever you prefer to call it - those of us who don't come from Amsterdam but either from a town up north, Portugal, or over in Venezuela or Australia. What we all have in common is this: once we leave our hometowns, we're tasked with one brilliant, wonderful thing: finding our Amsterdam family. 

I say family because friends who we choose, over and over again, are a kind of chosen family to me. When you move abroad and you don't know absolutely anyone, it's exhilarating but also a little scary sometimes, and understandably. You're out of your depths, your neighborhood, your bubble, so to speak. And finding people you click with might be daunting. When I first came to the Netherlands, I was struck by sheer luck and serendipity: roughly half of my current friends are the same people I first met when I was eighteen, roaming the halls of university. Over the past eight years, they've become my siblings: people I've grown close to, then apart from, people who live in different cities now, people who move away and, by chance, return in pursuit of a new job, a new degree, another adventure.

This season tends to bring up difficult feelings for me. I grew up feeling a bit out of place with my family - a family that loves me, that knows me, that raised me, but that feels alien from time to time. I struggled with feeling heard and understood, and it's something I'm still working on as a young adult. In this way, the Netherlands couldn't have been more different. Even through the dreary cold and September rain, it was like arriving someplace you've waited to return to for a long time. You say, ah, I recognize you. I'm home. 

And just like that, your family begins shapeshifting, molding, forming. Your life begins again. 

This winter, I hope you take a little moment to celebrate your chosen family! Send this to someone you love, someone who represents your chosen family in this really fun, weird, beautiful chapter that was 2023 in Amsterdam. May the year ahead be bright. <3 - Clem

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Clement Taffin is a digital comms specialist. When she’s not doing that, she’s agonizing over what it means to be a person in the 21 century. Follow us on Instagram @amsterdive ✴︎