A Year in Berlin

August 2007. My friends scattered to Munich and Augsburg, and I ran to Berlin—away from heartbreak, away from a life that had stopped moving. I told myself it was temporary, a trial run I could bail on if it got bad. I knew I was lying.

A year later and I’m still here. The city stopped feeling like a mistake after about a week.

Tomi showed up early, chaos and absolute loyalty in one person. Jenny was the kind of disaster you know is a disaster while it’s happening but you go forward anyway. Then Mona, and she felt like I was looking at myself. A real soulmate, if that word means anything. She disappeared. Since then I’ve accumulated a lot of people—friends, colleagues, housemates, people building something and people completely lost, people who know what they want and people who are still searching. Just people living the way you live when you’re not performing.

The city works on you week by week. I was supposed to keep one foot out, ready to leave, but that plan fell apart around week three. Now it’s just where I am.

Second year’s starting soon. Another training phase, a real apartment finally, the sense of cycles moving through you. If I’d listened to the part of me that wanted to go home on day one, I never would’ve seen any of this. That’s the only thing I’m certain about.

Second part. Still here.