Dear Queenie,
I recently moved back home to Sint Maarten after living in the Netherlands for several years.
I thought it would be an easy transition. I was coming back to what I knew. But it hasn’t felt that way. Everything feels… heavier. The traffic, the cost of groceries, the salaries compared to expenses, it’s hard not to compare. In the Netherlands, things felt more structured. Here, everything feels like you have to push a little harder just to get basic things done. At work, there is very little separation. People are in your business. Personal and professional mix in a way I am no longer used to. And outside of work, it continues. People comment on how I speak now, my habits, even small things. I keep hearing: “You acting Dutch.” Even in my own family, I feel it. I am still being treated like the same person who left, expected to fall back into old roles, with demands and expectations that don’t match where I am now. I wanted to come home. But now I feel like I don’t quite fit here anymore. Queenie, is this just me adjusting? Or is this what happens when you come back from the Netherlands you change, and home doesn’t? —Back from NL, Not Back to Myself
Dear Back from NL, Not Back to Myself,
You did not come back. You returned. And those are not the same thing. When you left for the Netherlands, you entered a system that values structure, planning, and personal boundaries. Over time, you adapted to that rhythm. Now you are back in a place that operates differently, more fluid, more personal, more interconnected. So what you are feeling is not failure to adjust. It is contrast. Traffic feels worse because you experienced efficiency. Costs feel higher because your expectations shifted. Work feels intrusive because your boundaries became stronger. And the comments, “acting foreign”, are not really about you. They are about change. You are reflecting growth that others did not witness step by step. So instead of seeing evolution, they see difference. Now, about your family. They are interacting with the version of you they remember. That is normal. But it does not mean you have to step back into that version. this is where you begin setting quiet boundaries: “That doesn’t work for me anymore.” “I handle things differently now.” No argument. No over-explanation. Just consistency. And here is the part you need to accept. You may never feel exactly the same “fit” you once had. Because you are no longer the same person who left. The goal is not to return to who you were. It is to create space for who you are now, here. That takes time. But it also requires that you stop measuring “home” by how it used to feel, and start shaping it into something that works for you today. You did not lose your place. You just have to redefine it.
—Queenie
