Berlin: The Love of Your Life or a Distant Lover?

I’m pretty sure that you know Notes of Berlin or that at least you have encountered some really funny and incredibly true quotes or messages written on the walls of Berlin. One of them that I can’t get out of my mind was this one: “Having to leave Berlin feels like leaving the love of my life.”

When I read this I felt like the city was talking to me. Or that at least somebody somewhere just felt what I was feeling. Because back then my relationship with Berlin was about to become, against my will, a long distance relationship. And that was a really scary moment. To feel like your passionate and beautiful love affair is going to end so abruptly leaves you uneasy. And while you get on the plane you find yourself already making up crazy plans to get back to your recently lost lover.

 

 

But for some people, this long-distance relationship with the city seems to work just fine. Being away from Berlin is for them the perfect combination of wanting it enough to be willing to spend some time together enjoying that time to the fullest, but not enough to endure the struggle of actually moving to Berlin and losing the magic to the hard routine. Maybe for you coming to Berlin for a crazy weekend of constant partying and then go back to your safe space, feels enough. Because sometimes it’s really hard to stay in love with Berlin.

Juggling 5 jobs in Berlin doesn’t sound as cool as getting into Berghain, or as thrilling as going to a stunning experimental audio-visual performance. But if, in the end, you refuse to give up and you want more, maybe there’s something good going on there. Even love. And that is how everything begins, the eternal struggle for the right decision.

 

photos: Berk Karaoglu, illustrations: Amanda Artiaga

 

But what would life be like without the challenges and the problems? Plain, simply boring and awfully predictable. In the end, I like to think that love will always win and that we’ll overcome all the obstacles because otherwise, everything else is bitterness, negativity and complains. And that does not look good on Instagram. So cheers to the spontaneous, unexpected and sometimes sadly short moments that we are able to enjoy between arrivals and departures.

What about you? Is Berlin the love of your life? Or just a distant lover that you cannot resist?

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