"Was the timing difficult?" she asked during our first one-on-one. I said personal circumstances had made earlier moves complicated, and that I was ready now. She accepted that without asking for a confession and spent the rest of the meeting explaining what success would look like in the next ninety days. I left with a clear set of objectives and the strange pleasure of having a professional conversation that didn't require me to justify wanting the work.
The job demanded more of me than my old role had. I was expected to challenge assumptions, make technical decisions that affected several teams, and take responsibility when a promising experiment failed in testing. During the first major planning session, I realized I was surrounded by people who were better than I was at particular things, and instead of feeling threatened, I felt energized. It was the kind of environment I'd hoped to find when the first Amsterdam offer arrived years earlier.
That didn't mean the transition was effortless. I made small mistakes with unfamiliar systems, stumbled through meetings where acronyms had meanings I hadn't learned, and returned home some evenings too exhausted to unpack. On my first attempt to rent a bicycle, I nearly collided with someone who informed me in efficient English that I should pay more attention. I apologized and decided I'd start with quieter routes until my confidence caught up with my enthusiasm.
The loneliness was sharpest during ordinary moments. I would buy something for dinner and instinctively consider whether Emily liked it, then remember I only needed to feed one person. I'd see a couple arguing good-naturedly over directions and feel a pang of envy for the easy intimacy of sharing a place with someone. At night, I'd sometimes open my camera roll and scroll past photographs I wasn't ready to delete, stopping before I reached the beach trips and holiday dinners that belonged to our relationship.
I told myself I didn't need to erase her to move forward. The memories could remain part of my history without serving as instructions for my future, just as her photographs with Jake had never been the real issue. The difference was that I no longer wanted to keep recreating the closeness that had made those memories meaningful. I wanted enough distance to remember both the good and the bad without needing either to justify a new decision.
At work, people made room for me before I knew how to ask. A colleague named Sanne invited me to join a lunchtime walk and patiently explained local customs I kept misunderstanding. Another engineer, Tomas, showed me a reliable place to buy secondhand furniture and helped carry a narrow bookshelf up the stairs when I found a permanent apartment. Neither knew much about my previous relationship, and I was grateful to be seen as the new colleague learning a city rather than the man recovering from a breakup.