Leaving Berlin: Introduction

There are a lot of things I’m fighting to stop myself from thinking at the moment, because they upset me too much. But I thought I would take a stab at explaining them, at least to myself, and then putting them here, should anyone care to read them. To round off the tale of my (first) Berlin experience, I wanted to make a list of all the things I like about Berlin. And this serves as an introduction to that. I apologise that it’s probably a bit too serious for the internet.

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The time I have dreaded more than anything has finally arrived – I can’t feasibly stay in Berlin any more. Without full-time employment. Without enough money to pay rent coming in. Without enough potential prospects for future jobs.

I guess additionally, in terms of the bigger picture, there is not enough justification for bleeding dry whatever resources I might have (parents) chasing a part time job or little pieces of work here and there which won’t help me in the future.

And I’ll admit it. I want things. I want to be able to go shopping occasionally and buy nice clothes, and by clothes I mean make-up, and by nice I mean MAC. I want to gradually accrue miss-matched furniture so that I can piece together a little life around me. Maybe something resembling a home, that truly belongs to me and that I don’t feel can be ripped from underneath me at whim. I don’t want to wake up worrying where I will be living or how I will ever repay student debts or own anything of value.

I also want to be able to plan holidays. I want to know that before I am 30 I can stand in the one place on earth I want to see the most. When I’m reduced to tears by pictures of tiles on the walls of buildings I want to know I’ll be able to touch them. (For shame, that really happens quite a lot when I start thinking about Central Asia). I want to plan those excursions, holidays and tours and know that they’re within my reach, some day.

And I’m 27. And it started. I went to work in a kindergarten and it started to, you know, tick tock, tick tock. Children are sort of alright really. And some of them desperately need older people to help them learn about the world, feed them and clothe them. We call some of those people parents and I think I have the responsibility to be one someday. So when and if I’m ever lucky enough to convince all the people you need to convince that I should be a parent to one or two of those parentless children, I need some sort of a life to be able to offer them.

And begrudgingly it’s all financial. I feel like Berlin has taught me two crucial life lessons:

1. Money is not important. Art is important. People are important. And I am important, to myself. My happiness and emotional well-being are much more important than money. Finding out about new people in my life, forging strong friendships and spending time with the people I love is so much more important than money.
2. Money is really important. You can’t do anything without it. I’m not actively endorsing it as a construct or system, I’m just acknowledging that in the world where I am living, it’s essential. Even when the things which you are most passionate about are not expensive or even material, you still need to eat and sleep and wash whatever clothes you might wear to keep yourself warm and, you know, not naked. And, the things I want, the things I’m missing, they cost money.

But on the other side of the coin I don’t have, I’m happier here.

In London I remember feeling uncomfortable about leaving the house, uncomfortable about talking to people I didn’t know because I thought they would only be thinking about how unattractive I was. And in Berlin I don’t. I feel better about myself, physically. I don’t think about the future anymore in terms of ‘when I’m thinner’. If I really wanted to be thinner, I’d be thinner. Suddenly, being in a more mixed crowd, with actual real live straight men too, the understanding of beauty I used to have seems ridiculous, it doesn’t seem to play a part in my day to day life. It would be relevant if I wanted to be a model, but I can’t really understand how I thought it was so important walking out of the house on a Monday morning. I can’t understand how it stopped me wanting to get out of bed, or occupied so many of my thoughts…

In London I was limited. I believed very firmly in my own failings, as a person, and professionally. Falling at so many hurdles in Berlin has reinstalled my low self-esteem to an extent, especially with regard to my professional capabilities. But back in the summer I genuinely started to dream again. I started to believe it was possible for me to achieve things. Maybe I could learn a new language. Maybe I could write a book. Maybe I could write a book in that language… wait, not that. It didn’t get that far-fetched. But, like a child, I believed in my right to try and my right to hope.

After thinking about everything a little bit and putting off thinking about everything a lot, I decided that I need to do something responsible for my future. The first step in that chain is to stop haemorrhaging money in Berlin, and aim towards returning with a more stable and long-term footing, so that I won’t ever, ever have to feel like I feel right now, and leave again.