There are times when life surprises you and turns everything you thought you had under control upside down. You had a life with someone you thought you loved and had shared memories and stories with for 20 years. You shared groups of friends, Netflix afternoons and mornings when you didn’t want to get out of bed.

But, sometimes, everything gets interrupted and you are no longer married. You no longer share groups of friends or memories with someone but start creating your own.

Rui, 43 and Portuguese, has decided that it’s never too late to start over and give yourself a chance on this path they call life. The desire to start writing a new story from scratch led him to contact TenS Holland and start a new life in the Netherlands. He felt impatient, courageous, even if fear of him prevented him from sleeping soundly on the worst nights.

And in just three weeks he saw himself in another country starting from scratch, even though he now believes it is one of the best decisions he has made in his life. He is happy at work. Talking to him, he gave me the impression that he is a person who works to live and does not live to work. That he likes what he does, and also the friends he has met at the company. He feels fulfilled and starts putting commas and periods and following into his new life.

Although he shares a room in his house, he would like to be more independent and have his space than him. At the moment they offered him the possibility of having a single room but he who knows if in the future he will end up having a house of his own in the Netherlands. But he is happy. He thanks us because according to him “she had that little push to enter a new phase in his life”.

Rui is an example that life takes many turns. That it is never too late if you feel like it and that you must always seek happiness in the small details, even if it is miles away.