“- We shouldn’t be afraid of leaving things behind, because what is really important always stays with us. Even when we don’t want to.
– So in the end we never leave anything or anybody behind?
– Yes.
– What a rotten deal”
(dialogue from the movie Mine Vaganti)
It’s always difficult to say goodbye and leave something behind, be it places, habits, jobs or people, especially people (or is it especially habits?) But when you leave all of them behind by moving to another country, it feels like a life ends and another life begins. I did this three times already and I am wondering how many new “lives” we get before the game is over. It reminds me of what one of my favorite Romanian writers (Dan Lungu) said “We have only one life, but many deaths.”
So, after three years and three months of living in Brussels it’s time to say goodbye to: French courses, slow Sunday mornings with pain au chocolat and Tribune de Bruxelles (accompanied in the first two years by a hefty French-Romanian dictionary), strolling in the Cinquantenaire park, complaining about the weather and the bureaucracy, cheap weekend trips in Europe, job, biking in the forest at Woluve, La Cambre and Tervuren, feeling a stranger, language and cultural barriers, feeling alone, consumerism at its peak, Leffe, Palm, Chimay Bleu, Westmalle Triple, Jupiler, the feeling that I made a difference in some people’s lives, changing, Carolle, new and old friends, isolation, self-discovery, love, good conversations, Uca, feeling lost, heartbreak, Carolle, courage, kundalini yoga, hiking and kayaking in the Ardennes, Couleur Cafe, new projects, unfinished projects, fantastic second hand shops, Jeu de Balle (the flea market), the pita with melting fta cheese, olives and dried tomatoes at Marche du Midi (still drooling), rekindling my passion for photography, discipline, decisions…(to be continued)
As for the photos, they were taken from the top of Parking 58, a 10-floor parking building in the center of Brussels, where I’ve been wanting to go ever since I arrived in Brussels. So on my last day here I wanted to check off that ever-growing list of places to see at least this one (and there are still so many things I would like to photograph in Brussels). I thought it was also a good way to say goodbye to Brussels through photos.
I would like to hear from you too. Have you lived in different countries? How would you describe it? How did it change you? How was it to say goodbye to a place? Does your perception of it change when you know you would leave?
