Not jealous of their lives, but grieving our own

How a few innocent comments about rainy walks and vacations, unexpectedly became a mirror of years spent surviving without rest, freedom or recovery

Sometimes I think a single Instagram story can trigger more in someone than people will ever truly understand.

Not because I don’t want others to be happy. Quite the opposite, actually. I genuinely believe the world becomes a better place when people have a life that truly fits them. A place where they feel happy. A loving relationship. Nature nearby. Work that feels meaningful. A daily life with peace woven into it. I wish that for everyone.

That’s exactly why this story hit me so hard. Someone writing that she is “so desperately in need of a vacation,” while they already go on multiple vacations every year. Someone complaining about her “stupid walk etc” in the rain, while that walk takes place from a chalet by the Wadden Sea, surrounded by nature.

Meanwhile, Mart and I were once again sitting in the same tiny room in Utrecht. Next to a busy road, between highways and railway tracks. In a house where we’ve spent years trying to live invisibly in order to avoid confrontation and tension.

We haven’t really been on vacation in almost six years (aside from last year’s failed attempt with our broken camper), or been away from home longer than a long morning. No real break from the same environment. No different rhythm. No waking up with the feeling that a day might unfold differently than the one before it.

For years now, our life has felt like the exact same day repeating itself over and over again. Not because we love routine, but because our lives have become completely intertwined with my mother’s schedule. When she’s gone, we move. When she’s downstairs, we wait. When things feel calm enough, we try to exist for a moment without tension. And in the meantime, we keep trying to convince ourselves that this is temporary while the years quietly pass by.

I think people underestimate what a life like that does to a nervous system. That burnout doesn’t only come from working too much, but also from spending years never truly being able to relax. From constantly being alert. From always having to take another person into account. From not having your own territory. No place where your system can finally let go.

And then there’s also the old car without inspection that we barely dare to use, because breaking down for us isn’t just practically stressful, it could literally mean getting stranded outside of our safe routines. Because of contamination fears, we don’t feel able to simply take a train or ride home with someone else. Even something as simple as “going to nature for a bit” often feels like a logistical and mental expedition because of that.

For many people, walking in the rain is just something annoying. For us, even that feels like freedom. Not because rain suddenly became magical, but because for years we’ve been longing for something incredibly basic: simply being able to go outside every day. To walk into nature straight from home. To not first have to survive a car ride. To not be afraid of breaking down. To not constantly think about gas money, repair costs, police, overstimulation, having to leave before a certain time, getting home before a certain time, and contamination fears.

I think what hurt me most wasn’t even the vacation itself. It was the realization of how invisible freedom can become when you live a life that feels safe. That you can find a rainy walk annoying because walking itself is already a normal part of your daily life. Because being outside is accessible. Because peace is accessible. For us, even that has felt out of reach for years.

Maybe that’s also why it affected me so deeply that this woman knows our story well. Years ago, one of her colleagues interviewed me, and Mart and I were featured in her magazine. So she doesn’t just vaguely know we exist, she actually knows parts of our life. And yet today I realized how large the distance can be between being touched by someone’s story, and truly staying connected to what that story means long-term.

Of course, she has shared something for us before. Twice, I think. Once about someone offering a lawn mower, even though there isn’t even grass here and we would have had to pick it up all the way in the north of the country. Another time asking whether someone could visit a rental house in the east for us, back when we had already barely been using the car for years.

And somehow it almost feels ungrateful to even write that down, because I know many people do absolutely nothing at all. But I think the pain lies precisely in the contrast. In how deeply people can seem affected by your story, while you still continue living in the exact same hopeless situation for years afterward. While their lives continue. Vacations continue. Walks continue. Freedom continues.

Later that same day, I received a private message from someone saying he was “shattered” because his vacation in June had been canceled due to work, but that he would probably still travel for four weeks around Christmas and would definitely go away for his birthday in November.

And once again, what I mostly felt was that enormous contrast between different realities. Not because his disappointment isn’t real. Of course it is. But when you yourself haven’t truly gone anywhere in almost six years, have barely been away from home longer than a long morning, and even a small trip into nature depends on stress, timing, gas money, and a car that could break down at any moment, a message like that almost feels like looking into a completely different world.

A world where travel has become such a normal part of life that missing out on one vacation already feels like a huge limitation. While we have reached a point where our desires have become so painfully basic that they almost sound absurd to say out loud: a daily walk, a place of our own outside the city, a nervous system that isn’t constantly switched on, and days that don’t revolve entirely around avoiding, adapting, and enduring.

And maybe that is the hardest part of long-term survival: the way the world slowly forgets how heavy your reality actually is, while you are still living inside it every single day.

That isn’t jealousy. It’s grief. Grief for a life in which we haven’t truly been able to recover for years. Grief for spontaneity. For freedom. For peace. For the feeling that you’re allowed to simply be human, instead of constantly being occupied with survival.