I’m writing from vodelpark, sitting in a patch of grass under the sun as it slowly dips into the trees. It’s my last night in amsterdam. I’m tired, but content.
I’ve been traveling in europe for two weeks. Mostly for work but shlepping between cities is starting to wear on me. 8 hours to copenhagen (pleasure), 2 to dublin (work), 1.5 to amsterdam (work).
Amsterdam is a special treat because my lovely friend Natalie lives here and I get to live her little amsterdam life for a few days.
This is my third time here. When I was younger and first started traveling on my own, I wanted to spend every second in a new country, checking off the top attractions on tripadvisor. But as I’ve gotten older I just want to spend time with the people I love doing things that make them happy.
Natalie and I spend the weekend running around gorgeous french bakeries, walking her pup kenji, and eating in all the trendy dutch restaurants.
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Monday marks the start of the work conference. The majority of my days are spent in meetings and nights at industry dinners. The week wears on and I find myself feeling more untethered without a routine or a good sleep schedule. Exhaustion from the day, being in a foreign place, the replaying of slightly off social interactions pile up higher and higher and culminate with me wanting to cry at 3pm every day.
When I’m in new york and start to feel like this, it usually coincides with too many days in row of not running, not drinking water, functioning on too little sleep. The basic things. I always forget to take care of myself when I’m in the moment and attribute feeling bad to my tendency towards anxiety. And then I feel guilty that I’m feeling bad when I’m supposed to be enjoying amsterdam.
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On mornings I like running the loop around vondelpark — I try to run without my headphones when I’m in a new place because it gives me the headspace to be more observant and allow my mind to decompress.
I keep thinking about the idea of being good to myself. The concept sounds so simple and earnest, but so often I fail to take care of myself. I’ll eat meals out of convenience and sleep late and fill my days with anxious, negative self-talk and then wonder why at 3pm on the dot I want to have a menty b.
The weekend with natalie was interspersed with little breaks at her home to take care of kenji. At regular intervals, we’d feed him, walk him, refill his water, play a little and make sure he was okay in his crate.
It’s funny because humans are so complex but when it comes down to our biology, we’re still just animals. There are times when I feel mired in the stress of something overwhelming, but a lot of the time, the feeling is compounded because I’m not helping myself. I operate on autopilot, taking in stress, tiktoks, social interactions, and jamming these things to the back of my mind without giving myself any time to take care of the human pet.
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It’s my last night in Amsterdam so I take myself on a date. I’ve eaten alone out in public before, almost always while traveling, but there is something about the deliberateness of calling it a date that feels intriguing to me.
It’s 9pm, which I suppose is late so it takes a few tries, but finally I sit down at a little french restaurant near the canals that is still serving dinner. The waitress asks if it’s just me. She pours me a water and hands me a basket of bread and butter.
I sit at a cozy table upstairs, overlooking the restaurant and the street outside. I imagined I’d feel self conscious, but the security of my laptop and my notebook makes it feel like just another meal I’m eating in new york.
Being in europe reminds me how often I try to optimize my time in my day to day life. If I’m eating, I’m often listening to a podcast, reading, writing, getting ahead on work.
When I was in Copenhagen, I felt genuine shock by how unbothered the danes were in time optimization. In order to make a left turn on your bike you have to wait for the bike signal to turn green to cross. And even if there were no cars coming, you’d wait for another full light to switch before crossing the next road to complete the turn. The part of me that lives in new york keeps wanting to run the red, but the other part of me knows better than to rush on holiday when I have no where I need to be except present.
It’s my first date with myself, so I put my laptop away, order a sangivoise. White fish for the entree and a salad for good measure. I realize the restaurant is playing music and I really try to listen to it. I study the painting beside my table. I people watch. I’ve heard that most of the time, our brains are only consciously paying attention to 20% of everything that it’s processing at any given time.
In amsterdam, I want to pay attention, I want to remember the good times.
Isn’t if funny how we’ll give a stranger on a date the benefit of our distraction-less attention and we’ll always give our dogs the benefit of a routine full of walks, water and play? But when it comes to ourselves, we don’t feel the need to give ourselves the same courtesy.
It’s just me I always reason.
But I’m starting to think that’s the wrong way to go about it. I’m working on being good to myself — remembering to do the things that I know to be good for my soul, the activities that nourish me and spending time with the people that make me feel healthy and happy.
It’s a slow journey, but I hope you are good to yourself too.
Where did you stay in Copenhagen? Trying to find a good hotel for this summer!