Leaving means letting go. But letting go doesn’t happen immediately and especially not when you leave something you’ve grown fond of. Moving on doesn’t mean leaving it behind. Every parting happens in waves and they – if you’re blessed by luck and experiences in your childhood – become smaller and smaller. Until at some point you’re left with the beautiful feeling of the experience. And you’re free. Free to enjoy the memory when it arises or when you bring it up yourself. Free to let go of what you’ve experienced because you’ve been able to really let it go. Free to look into the future and approach it with clarity and excitement.

I arrive in a new place and yet I’m not there. I can feel so much inside me resisting letting go and being here. I don’t manage to accept the unchangeable and create space for the new. Although what was so clear at the beginning, namely that you leave again after a fixed period of time, doesn’t seem to apply. Because the place I’m leaving has dug its way into my heart. And it still looks back at it.

In the beginning it’s the absence of happiness. And yet I recognize a meaning in this feeling that points me in the right direction. I now can see what’s right for me and what’s not. A cold, functional new building is definitely not it. Being in the city or the village is not. Instead, it’s a warm, cozy house surrounded by nature. A gas stove. A wood-burning fireplace. Peace and quiet. Silence. Darkness. Stone and wood. Warmth. Sun that vibrates in the room.

That is what I’m looking for. This is what I need.