A year ago I wrote my first Berlinniversary post and ended with the thought, "Wonder where I'll be writing from next year!" On a train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it turns out. And then from a Jerusalem café eating my morning bagel, on the train back a couple days later, and then finally back in my apartment in Berlin. While somewhat indicative of the travel cycle that is my life, it's more indicative of the problems I'm having articulating what the past year in Berlin has meant to me.
That doesn't mean I haven't thought about it. Au contraire my friends, I think about it a ridiculous amount. Every jog or stroll past the Brandenburg Gate and I'm struck with the same thought: "wow, I really live here." A routine gathering with friends over a glass of wine and I find myself looking around the table admiring them, thinking, "wow, these are really my friends." At yoga class I glance over at the instructor and marvel at how I've known her since my first day in the city. Moments like these are very common for me, where I ponder where I am, how I got here, and how much has changed. I'm not sure if this is an expat thing, 20-something thing, or Sophia thing... am I just more introspective than most?
Don't get me wrong, a lot of the time I'm on auto-pilot and go through the motions of everyday life. Everything is zoomed in and there isn't time or energy or desire to peer at it from the outside. But most days, even if for a very brief moment, I zoom out and inspect my Berlin life from somewhere else. Like when you post something on Facebook and then re-read it 10 times to make sure it's still there, that you still like it, and to see what it looks like to other people (again, do other people do that?). When I "refresh, edit, 'view as specific person'" my own life, I generally "like" what I see. I see the standard stuff: job, friends, coworkers, apartment, travel, favorite restaurants and cafés, particular streets or corners, my running route, Gözleme etc. I also see myself navigating through all of it: a braver, more independent, and more passionate person than I know from the past. I see myself stumbling and failing probably more often than I used to, but I also see myself taking lots of risks. When I'm zoomed in I usually can't see where I'm headed. Zoomed out I'm still not sure, but I'm somehow assured that I'm on a path.
Regardless of whether I stay another 2 or 20 years (and whether it takes 1 hour or 5 days to write this post), this is what Berlin will always mean for me. Berlin has coaxed a different side out of me. My relationship to the city feels reciprocal, and I'm thankful every day for what Berlin has given me. Now that I think about it, that's probably why I'm so set on giving something back to it, whether it's taking visitors on impassioned tours of the city where I don't shut up about how awesome it is, to writing about it on Collidoscope.
So cheers Berlin, here's to year three of you and me!
