Tecla Boonstra: „I was born and raised in Amsterdam. My cradle was in Bos en Lommer, in the Kolenkitbuurt. When I was 6, my parents moved to Amsterdam-Noord. I also did my nursing training there. In 1996 I bought this house in Gaasperdam, with my then husband. We didn’t want to leave the city, but in the Jordaan it became too cramped for a family. These were premium owner-occupied homes, intended for people with a smaller budget. In 1996 we paid 272,500 guilders for it. Now they are sold for 350,000 euros. I love living here. Our children could play on the street in front of the door, in the summer we often went to the Gaasperplas. You can still park for free here, it is near the old AMC where I still work. I can be in the center in twenty minutes by metro and in the summer I take the e-bike. I often go to the theater, eat with friends or take the car that I share with a friend to friends in Landsmeer. In the evening I do cycle around, then I prefer not to go through the Bijlmer alone, because there is sometimes a shooting here, although it is a lot safer than it used to be.
You can’t get me out of Amsterdam with a stick. I enjoy city life very much. My friends live here, my family. But I am very much on the edge here. By bike I make trips to Baambrugge or Vinkenveen. You are everywhere very quickly.
My son is a carpenter and lives around the corner. He is the handy man in the house and also regularly comes by for a healthy meal, because he is quite a ‘orderer’. I’m more of a Hello Fresh cooker. A box with three meals for two people is delivered every Saturday. I probably cook in advance for the days I work, then all I have to do is warm it up after a long bike ride. I’ll be home between five and six o’clock. I eat, read the NRC and then watch series on Netflix or go to the theater with a friend. I have now also discovered Picl.nl, so you can watch a movie at home and deposit money at a movie house of your choice.
Easy Pregnancy
“When I go to the AMC, I get up at half past six. I really need an hour in the morning with coffee and the newspaper. If I have to go to the VUmc, I get up at six o’clock, then I still have to cycle through all the red traffic lights on De Boelelaan to get there on time. We drink a cup of coffee and start at eight o’clock. I make my sandwich the night before. Eating in the cafeteria every day is fun, but it also costs a lot of money.
My mother was also a nurse and my father a train driver for the Dutch Railways. I knew early on that I was going into care, just like my brother, who was a nurse at the AMC. In 1989 I worked at the infertility clinic of the AMC and then I saw: getting pregnant does not happen by itself. But I did get pregnant easily! The first I got when I was thirty and fifteen months later the second came. It sometimes felt like twins. When the children were small, I started working for a home care organization so that I could be home during the day. Then I went into the gallery flats of the Bijlmer in the evening as a district nurse. I remember very well my first patient had a gunshot wound to his leg! When the children were 8 and 9, I missed the hospital too much and I went back to work at the AMC, first in the cardiology department and later in the gastrointestinal and liver diseases department.
Sometimes I see twelve patients in a day and sometimes you spend all afternoon removing a large polyp from the colon of one patient. I no longer do emergency services, then you see everything passing by: bleeding in the esophagus of people who drink too much, psychiatric patients who swallow sharp objects and children who swallow toys, detergent or a flat battery. Please put it away!
In December 2020 I got Covid, before there were any vaccines. Several colleagues were sick. I lay on the couch for two weeks under a blanket. After a week I was called by my GP’s assistant to check if I was not getting better. That made me very emotional. Imagine, it could have turned out differently all of a sudden. Then I decided to retire part-time. Why should I wait until I’m 67? Now I am still healthy. Eventually I’m going to give in about 300 euros a month when I’m 67, but yes, for the same money I suddenly drop dead when I’m 70, just like my father.
Rest in my life
I really enjoy my life as a younger elder. My fixed costs are low: the mortgage is only 80 euros a month, I have partly paid off the house and I have a good pension from the ABP. We receive 2,500 euros net per month. Now I work three days a week. Peace has come into my life! I have energy again for other things. I also thought it was a good preparation for my real retirement. The transition from full-time to nothing at all seems too big to me.
If there is no corona, I make a nice trip twice a year. In 2019 I went to Bali with two friends to celebrate that we had been friends for thirty years. I have now also started volunteering at the Harriet Tubman home for undocumented women and their children. They actually live a parallel existence, without papers, chance of a job or care and I knew too little about that. Sometimes they have also lived on the street with their child, I find that unimaginable. I am a coordinator and I contact, for example, the housing association or the health center. On my day off I love to lie in my hammock in the garden and read the newspapers extensively. Sure, the third life is totally fine.