Goodbye, Berlin
I was supposed to write something epic about leaving Berlin. One of those sweeping, comprehensive, brutally insightful articles that would make every other piece ever written about the city look like garbage. A text that would destroy every song, every poem, every previous goodbye.
Instead I’m in a friend’s bed with the flu, trying to write this legendary farewell, and all I can think is: I’ll puke on the TV tower if I have to read one more grand, comprehensive, brilliant reflection on Berlin. Honestly, Berlin can fuck off.
Five years of emotional chaos—anyone who’s been reading this place regularly knows. Broken relationships, late-night acid trips, trauma that changes you. I squeezed every drop out of this city, and I’m grateful I was here with these people at this time. But something died.
I realized late that none of us ever found the real Berlin. Didn’t want to, either. We lived in a fantasy surrounded by hipster markets and fashion weeks and after-parties and transplants chasing something they read about. A world of MacBook people outside Saint Oberholz on Tuesday afternoons, coding the next startup. We were locusts with iPhones, pouring ourselves into projects that meant nothing and would vanish completely. Social media consumed our ideals.
Most of the people I started this adventure with have already left. Gone to other cities or found some version of real life in the Kreuzberg apartments and corner stores. I’m still here having seen through it all and feeling bored.
I had relationships and experiences that matter. I fucked redheaded Berliners and blonde music bloggers, learned the kebab stands by which ones made me sick, fought drunk Nazis at the station. Things that were supposed to mean something. But Berlin never grabbed me the way it grabbed others. The fascination wore off into something ordinary. It’s finished.
So I’m leaving. Walked out of my apartment laughing, didn’t look back. I’ll miss the people who kept themselves together. I’m happy knowing this goodbye isn’t forever, just necessary. Maybe someday with different eyes.
An email lands while I’m thinking about this. The airline confirming my flight in four days. To Tokyo. I’m sitting here free, smiling, because I didn’t write that epic, comprehensive, brilliant piece about Berlin. I just said goodbye.