Why are you leaving all this?
How could you ever leave London?
Are you not happy here?
What are you going to do once you are there?
Believe when I say that I heard it all..
Stability is often seen by many as realities that do not change,
more as a reality that cannot be changed…
Moving abroad with a plan that felt undoable to many, it felt as a challenge, not only a personal challenge but also a challenge towards the opinions that came our way.
We are not discrediting the option of stability embodied in the comfort of the proximity of family and a familiar surroundings.
We are not judgmental in any way as the concept of belonging and sticking to a location or a routine is a valid philosophy in life.
We are only talking about our own experience about moving and how much this is part of our personalities (as we came to re-discover) and how this came to represent, at one point of our journey as individuals and as a couple, a common goal for both of us.
We have left London, a city we loved to the max,
We were blessed enough to own our home, a charming Georgian property with a large garden that we bought and renovated with dedication and passion,
We loved our neighborhood, its dynamics and inhabitants.
We lived quite central and close to the most vibrant South London scene of music, cultural mixture, restaurants and bars.
We had careers, work connections, friends, and we have both been Londoners for most of our adult lives…in London we have both grown, worked, studied, danced, partied, dated and all the beautiful and less beautiful stuff in between …
We were part of London’s life and London’s life was part of us and I guess it will always be…
So why move away then? because of unhappiness?
Quite the opposite really…
Because we where (and are) healthy and curious about what we could possibly do,
Because we did loved our home and habits, but we left it when we still loved it, before it became our anchors to a destiny we could not longer influence,
Because London was our beloved, mad, intoxicatingly stimulating hometown, but I guess moving from a place to another was in our DNA as a sign of growth, evolution, and freedom.
Because we did have our friends and acquaintances, but all of us were in the turmoil of busy lives, we often planned meeting up, often weeks in advance, for that to be canceled because of one reason or another...
It all came with a path of discoveries, but not immune to uncertainties, at times loneliness and discouragement,
It all happened, and is still evolving and happening…. fired by an energy we have found in the process of change, the same process that made us feel a bit overwhelmed at times.
But three years down the line we are still adjusting and working on our reality, but nothing suggests that we would not be living the same everyday adjustments, even if we would have stayed put in London..
Life as a process always requires re-evaluation..
One thing is nevertheless certain…
What we found, after our move, was a reality that challenged and rewarded us.
We were not only spectators of life, we were our own life's architects.
We had to dive in the unknown a bit, to remind us we could swim freely…
A step that only we could do from within ourselves..