Sitting in a train in Hamburg, looking out at the houses out there. This is where I used to live. A long time ago, more than a decade now. I used to know this area so well, my favourite cafe with the plant growing in through the window, the wonderful music shop where I bought all those CDs that mainstream shops didn't have, the cornerstore with fresh Turkish bread and sheep cheese... Things have changed. The streets are the same, but have dressed in different clothing. The cafe has lost all its charm, the CD shop is now a coffee shop chain, everything looks different, yet weirdly familiar.
This is where I grew up, the place I spent most years that I have ever lived in one city, and even though I only moved here when I was eight I still consider it my origin. My roots. This place has shaped me, has educated me, has given me the ideas for my life that drove me on onto my path. Nonetheless, I have known ever since I started learning my first foreign language at age 5 that there was more, and I needed to go find it. I needed to travel to other places, experience other cultures, learn how other people lead their lives, and then pick and choose what I want in my life. I knew I needed to leave.
Now, at this point in my life where, despite me having finally picked a place, I am struggling hard to settle, essentially because I cannot seem to find a job to make a living, the prospect of having to come back here is uncomfortable. Yes, my roots are here, I enjoy coming back to visit, but I have grown out of it. It is not that I dislike it, but the thought of living here, under my parents' roof at first until I can pay for a place to live, strips me of my dreams, it feels stifling, small, restricted. I have seen things out there, I have lived my life in a way that I cannot fit in here anymore. The sapling has broken out of the earth towards new skies, and the roots remain hidden underground. I can grow into other directions, into new things, but bending back and merging with the roots... It doesn't work that way.
I don't mean to say that people who chose to stay here are restricted, not at all. It is all about choice. And my choice is to find ways of learning new things, extending my experience, and integrating them into my life to create something new, and never stop. I am slowing down, in the sense that I don't want to move all over the globe anymore, I appreciate the things I can find in one place, but I want this place to offer me enough newness, enough strangeness, to keep me interested. And not be based on German. I don't live in the German language anymore, if that makes any sense, I think in English, I dream in English, I even translate much of what I want to say from English into German. German humour has eluded me ever since I can remember, whereas British comedy is among the greatest... ok, not all of it, but the black humour, best in the world. This is what feels right for me. Other people look for other things. And that is great.
Where it does become a problem is when my family starts pushing. Come back here, start again here, live here and leave everything else behind. For them this is the best place to be, but they cannot understand that the thought of having to move back feels to me like giving up on my dreams and destroying all I have worked for. They don't understand, and feel offended when I don't want to jump at the suggestion and pack my things. But I can't give up. Yes, these are my roots, but I can't bend back down...
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