In the whole world, London is the city where I have the biggest amount of memories with my family.
To me London means past.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex from Natural History Museum, so huge when I was a child.
The wind blowing on my cheeks on Tower Bridge while a picture of me sitting on my dad’s laps was being taken.
The Victorian House where my mum used to cook custard cream and Vicky the Viking watched with my sister sitting on the carpet.
The card game to learn the family members in English and a toy gun that caused alarm at the 1990 border control of Heathrow Airport.
To me London means a more recent past.
The first moments of peacefulness after coming out. Discovering a love for theatre and for English language.
London to me is and has always been a symbol for discovery, absolute freedom, energy and vitality. A place where it doesn’t matter what you wear, what you think, what you believe in, who you love, what you eat or what music you listen to. There’s everything, regardless.
This city, with its constant changing and evolution, makes you feel like if you arrived a minute ago even when you’ve been living here for two years. Its continuous evolution pushes you to constantly evolve both personally and individually. It’s a sense of discovery and exploration that makes you see everything in complete awe.
I have always been shocked by the feeling of possibility that this city brings to me. I have always felt like I could be everything I wanted to be and do anything I felt like doing, whether I had been here for just a minute or a thousand years, I couldn’t help feeling this incredible and energetic will to do more, to improve, to grow.
I often hear people here talking about a career change of path and I genuinely think that this motivation in exploring new possibilities is kind of contagious, other than brave. Leaving everything behind to create something else, something different, the sort of thing you wouldn’t have even conceived up to a year ago, seems to be part of the incredible ability London and Londoners have to transform.
I’ve heard of lawyers becoming waiters and teachers becoming lawyers. I’ve heard of marketing managers decide to become teachers and teachers deciding to become visual artists.
London to me is present (and a present). It means finding out what it’s like to be a TEFL teacher first and falling in love with SEN world after. It means my first Gay Pride Parade and my 30th birthday.
Through the London filter I’ve seen my life changing so many times that I can choose which moment of my life I want to recall every time I sit on St. Paul’s Cathedral’s steps or I walk along Southbank.
Recently, I’ve been thinking what would be like to move to a smaller place in UK, somewhere different from London, maybe smaller or more family like, just in case…
However, this place has become so important to me, that I feel like it’s a person, a friend that I am struggling to separate from.
I don’t know if London will be my present for ever, but what I definitely know is that it will be in my future. Somehow.