I left London on the 13th November 2010. Before leaving I was supposed to write a final entry to this blog. I wanted to summarise the way I felt, my thoughts about the upcoming future and my feelings towards the people and places that made my time in London so special and important.
However, I had no words. Goodbyes are weird things.
When you say goodbye you feel a bit like you are `breaking a contract` with your friends, your work, with London, with your life in general. And just like breaking a contract things change within a second, and you feel yourself become an outsider from that day-to-day existance that you have shared for so long with your mates, as though you have just jumped off some sort of ride.
Saying goodbye to all the people that have made my 11 years in London such an incredible time was difficult, and I found myself lacking the right words to really say how fortunate I consider myself to have met and shared my life with such wonderful people.
This is the legacy of one´s time in London- the lifelong friends you have made- and even though the city forgets quickly, the footprints of memory persist in some sort of parallel world where we will always be in London, in our 20s, doing the things we did and experiencing the emotions we went through together. That London - our London- does not forget, but quietly keeps these memories alive, like a small but significant secret that only few people need to know.
I can almost see the 19 year old myself jumping on the Piccadilly Line for the first time that first of September 1999. It was early afternoon. I had lots of bags and little idea of what was going to happen. Bizarrely, of that very first day I recall small things: the cold sunshine of South Kensington, the buzz of the city, that I was carrying the pot that I still use to make pasta, hearing someone saying 'Yep' rather than 'Yes' for the first time, the overall feeling of running towards a great adventure without being able to slow myself down.
Perhaps that 19 year old is still there, ready to start his great adventure, ready to live every year - every 365 days of London- as though they were his last ones.
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I came across your blog from a commenter on my blog and I just spent my entire break reading your entries. You write so beautifully and you manage to convey the exact emotions I felt while I was in London. It truly is a beautiful city and I'm hoping that perhaps my job search will be successful and I can live in London again and experience all of it's beauty and of course the gaps (more like chasms) in some of the tube stations! All the best wishes for the new chapter of your life :)
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