Wake me up when September ends

Delft has been my home for the last 7 years. I have spent a majority of my twenties in this city. I have loved this city and all the time that I have spent in it. I can still remember the countless evenings that I have reminded myself to not take this for granted. I have always known that this was fleeting and that it would inevitably come to an end. But, over the years this thought became more distant and it has been hard to think of a life beyond this city. There were many instances in my life when I could have moved away from Delft. I do not know if it was sheer luck or willful stubbornness that kept me there. Nevertheless, inevitably in September 2021 I had to leave this city on account of my new job. It was one of the most stressful events that I have faced. Almost like losing someone I love. I doubt I can condense the weight of 7 years into a simple blog post, but I hope that I can at least hold a small candle to what makes Delft so special to me.

Delft is a small cozy town in the south of The Netherlands. Its nestled between Rotterdam and The Hague and well connected to the cities in the west of the Netherlands. The city has a rustic well preserved medieval look to it (at least within the confines of the inner city). It is small and there isn’t much that isn’t accessible with a cycle. I came to this city in August 2014 to pursue a masters degree at the technical university and I have stayed here since. I moved a few times within the city, but I have stayed in the same place (Oostsingel 3) for the last 4 years. It’s a beautiful place opposite the eastern gate of the city. You can see the eastern gate overlooking the water (see pictures - two towers). However, what makes this city special has nothing to do with how the city looks, but rather how attached I am to it. Most of the experiences I have had in my adult life are connected to this city and its hard not to think of one without the other.

Frozen in time

When I am in Delft, it appears to me that the world moves on while I remain coagulated in time within the confines of this city. Nothing much changes here. The city goes through the same cycles. Of course, the city looks different through the different seasons, but not much else changes. The bridges and the cobblestones seem to be the same as they have always been. The towers of the churches are noticeable from all around the city and the EWI building in the university is iconic. I have spent years walking and biking through the same streets, taking the same route almost all the time. The cool breeze on my face as I walk along the beautiful canals never gets old. I remember my evening walks which always involved sitting on my favorite bench overlooking the water. Watching everything from paddle boards, students rowing and tug boats transporting sand, which have always been pleasantly welcoming. This familiarity gives me a sense of security. Despite things in the world changing and despite the fact that life goes on, in Delft, nothing changes. I know that, here, I can still hold on to the familiar. It’s comforting. Having a stable PhD contract, further cemented this sense of security and comfort. It was always a jarring experience to leave Delft. A harsh reminder that the rest of the world does not languish in this lethargy.

I am a rather social person and there is nothing I enjoy more than the convivial company of a dozen people around me. I have been on good terms with nearly everyone I have known over the years. Seeing a familiar face gives me a sense of camaraderie and a feeling of family. My life to a large extent has been connected to the university. The university and the bouldering gym are like secondary homes. Both are places that I have enjoyed being in. There’s a warm fuzzy feeling in walking into a place where you know so many people. Even a simple nod or a smile can do wonders to lift your spirits on a low day. For the most part, this cozy cocoon of Delft has helped me be oblivious to the happenings in the rest of the world. I have felt safe in cozy familiar Delft.

Perspective

I was rather apprehensive about how life would be when I started working on my PhD. I found it intimidating to have lunch in the first few weeks with my new colleagues, my supervisor and other staff members. I was not sure then if I could actually see myself on the other side of the table. I still believed myself to be a student. However, it did not take long for me to fall into my own crowd of people. I started working on my PhD in 2017 and in October that year we went to Copenhagen, Denmark for a study trip. I cannot really say that anyone was convinced that it was a study trip. Of course, we did ceremoniously visit the TU in Denmark and a series of other companies during the day. But the evenings were our own and we had a lot of time to get to know each other and to enjoy the city. This trip stands out to me. It really helped me get to know my new colleagues. It shortened a process that may have otherwise taken much longer. I could quickly identify who shared similar interests to mine and it did not take long for me to fall right back into being a student. The freedom to do so was a luxury that I will always be grateful for.

The most fascinating part of my time abroad has to be the people that I have met. Meeting people goes far beyond saying hello or sharing a conversation. “Meeting” people happens over months or years. The more time we spent with each other, the more comfortable we became in sharing our true feelings and opinions. We complained about things in the lab. We did a lot of sports together. We celebrated birthdays, attended music concerts, helped fix each others bikes, tore down wallpapers, painted walls and a myriad of other activities. It’s the conversations that fill the gap between these activities that helps me truly get to know my friends.

I had a multitude of different circles that I moved through. Bouldering became a very big part of my life. Getting a membership to me, simply meant going to the bouldering gym almost every other evening. Naturally going there so often meant I got to know everyone in the bouldering gym quite well. VOX was another big activity that I’ve been a part of. It’s a discussion group that I have been frequenting. What I loved about this group was the number of new people I got to meet every year. In time, I became a part of the board and took an active role in organizing these discussions myself. I came to know a lot of different people, many of whom I am still in contact with today. We still meet every fortnite to hangout and catch up. Mostly we watch a movie to keep the converstatoion going (there was never an obligation to actively prepare for these meetings). Further, I didn’t miss an opportunity to encourage my colleagues to participate in sporting activities as a team or take up other activities outside of work in my time in the university.

The rich diversity of people that I have had the opportunity to meet has shaped my perspective of how I view the world. This isn’t really something to be taken lightly. It formed a core part of my ideology in my twenties. Having an inquisitive and rebellious personality, these interactions pushed me to question and reshape the dogmatic views that I previously held on to. Its not the change in my perspective that is interesting, but the fact that perspective is a fluid concept is in itself rather eye opening. Naturally, I cannot say that the way I view things now is in any way complete. But, it’s easier for me to see how other people may see things differently. I also realize how easy it is to have an opinion without really having any context. I do not know if I have learnt much, but I most certainly am satisfied with my choice to come to The Netherlands. I am happy that I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone to make new friends from different parts of the world. I do realize what a cliche this sounds like.

The pandemic, summer of 2021 and Oostsingel 3

Even the pandemic was not too difficult to deal with in Delft. News of the pandemic usually reached us, without us in Delft really seeing much of it first hand. Yes, there was a bit of scramble for toilet paper in the early days of the pandemic. But we didn’t really experience anything too extreme. Mostly, it was a feeling of mixed confusion. I remember the time in the evenings when people clapped for the healthcare workers. This was long before people were breaking the windows of the healthcare organizations in frustration. I remember the first year of the pandemic as a time when we mostly worked from home. This was rather strange but not too difficult for me, since I was routinely working in the evenings anyways. This was actually liberating in a big sense. I could, now, use my afternoons to do other things. The bouldering halls were closed and all the restaurants were closed too, and so I took to spending my summer afternoons lying in the grass outside my house reading or simply relaxing. I usually invited a friend or two to join. Sometimes we played music while we watched the boats pass by. Occasionally we took a dip or a swim in the canal. I lived across the street and it was no challenge at all to get back home to use the toilet or have a shower. I also spent more time in Delftse Hout, a small lake in a park about 10mins away by bike. We spent our afternoons the same way in the lake too. This moment stands out so much because, in all my years in Delft, I never really found this exciting enough to do. But now when I was denied all other options, I embraced the opportunity to relax in the sun with open arms.

This city allowed me to be in a really creative environment. I constantly met people who were passionate about art, drama, music, etc. I had so much scope to work on my art. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to do this in my twenties. I was afraid that I would give into the inherent laziness that we all have or lose the motivation to do things other than my work. I could also spend some time focusing on sport, learning a new language and pursuing a whole set of other activities on a whim.

Another major aspect of Delft that I’m attached to is my home at Oostsingel 3 in Delft. I shared a house with two other friends that I had known since my first days in Delft. I had nice windows overlooking the canal and I would sit on the window sill with my windows open, feeling the cool evening breeze on my face. This house is rather dear to me. I got along well with my housemates and we had many shared interests. Food being at the top. We enjoyed every weekend we had. Saturdays were amazing! We spent the entire day cooking an enormous tasty meal. It was fun to cook with three people. We had enough people to man all the stations, make multiple dishes, play music and joke about the whole day. It also helped that all three of us shared an interest for playing Dota. We spent so many hours on the weekend playing as a team. To be honest, in the last few years the only time I have played this game is with them and I can’t think of playing it any other way. We also had so many common friends, that our house was usually full of people in the evenings. This was of course before the pandemic; But even during the pandemic we did have one or two people in addition to us. It was a truly magical time in many ways that left me wanting for nothing.

Moving out

But alas! These things unfortunately have a way of coming to an end. My PhD contract was coming to an end in July 2021 and big decisions had to be made. The PhD would take a while yet to finish. This didn’t seem like much of a surprise. Judging by the scores of my colleagues working far beyond their contracts, I suspected I would be in a similar boat. A price we never bargained for, but which we have to pay nevertheless (anyways, this post isn’t about the woe and misery of pursuing a PhD). I made a pretty big decision much earlier to follow a different career in the future. I started early with my applications and most of June and July 2021 were filled with interviews. I already knew early on that choosing any of the jobs that I had applied to will inevitably require me to leave the city. It wouldn’t be possible for me to commute everyday otherwise. I could still stave off the feeling of moving for a few more months. But the move began to loom over me. The stress was piling on. There was a lot of work yet to be done to complete the PhD and that bothered me. The interviews, though smooth, were a series of highs and lows which were beginning to wear me thin.

The day I signed my new work contract really set things in motion. I had to move. One of my other housemates also decided to move closer to his new job. I decided to move to Utrecht. I couldn’t think of a more logical choice for me. Two of my close friends lived in Utrecht and one of them commuted close to where my new job would be. I bouldered with these two quite often over the years and they are close friends of mine. Further, Utrecht has the same charm as Delft with its beautiful canals and well preserved medieval look. It seemed perfect to move to Utrecht. However, finding a house there was no easy feat. I spent nearly two weeks traveling back and forth looking for a house. This process sapped me of my energy since its an hour each way. I had plenty of time in the train to be left alone with my thoughts. This was not great, I was quickly getting overwhelmed at every instant that I was left to myself. I could see everything I enjoyed about Delft and all the friends I had made flash before my eyes. I soon started the painful process of informing friends of my departure and saying my goodbyes. It reminded me of all the times that other people did the same to me.

Watching the house empty out slowly was painful too. The house was becoming bare with every passing week. The couches were gone and the living room looked very empty and devoid of its soul. The same started happening with my room. There were a lot of moments when we said, this is probably the last time that we will do this particular thing in this house. After nearly 4 years of living together in relatively oblivious bliss, being forced to confront this feeling was very difficult. We didn’t get emotional, but I think we could all sense our buried emotions. The pervading sense of melancholy was hard to ignore. When my housemate packed his laptop, it meant the end of Dota. When I moved most of my furniture to Utrecht, it was slowly becoming an end to the time I was going to spend in Delft. We were all busy with moving and beginning to spend our nights in our new places. There were even days when we didn’t see each other in the house. Finally, after dragging this on for a full month it was done. I remember one of the last days that I was home in Delft. The landlord brought new tenants to view the house. He informed me that this latest bunch would most likely be the ones who get the house after us. It filled me with a mixed feeling of happiness and sadness to know that someone else will now make fresh memories in this place. I could not really fathom how I had become so attached to this place. Its not just the place. Its also the time, the space of mind we are in and a whole bunch of everything else. I don’t believe that we can ever recreate the same vibe we previously had even if we all met again somewhere else. We will never be in that same phase of our lives ever again. It feels a lot like saying goodbye to my twenties.

I left Delft in September 2021 in a state of uncertainty, devoid of hope. I wonder now, if I will ever get to relive these moments. I already know that I won’t. It was the same feeling I had leaving my university after my bachelors, when we all flew away into the distant corners of the world. Even though I can never recreate this, It will still always be special. But I guess in a way, it’s the fact that things are so fleeting that makes them so beautiful. I have to move on now, with the next steps of my life. I must face reality and stop living in the past. But, it’s not all bad. Thinking about all of this does make me smile.