Preparing to Leave

Bittersweet Farewell

All of a sudden, the farewell parties and meetings start, at work, with friends, with kindergarten teachers and friends of our children and with our family. Now it's getting real, it's not just something that we have dreamed of in our heads, our move to Greece is actually happening. And rather sooner than later.

This also means that we have to leave behind our beloved ones. Our friends, our social environment, our colleagues and our family. While nowadays it is not anymore so hard to say good bye, given that we have all different types of channels and tools to keep communicating with each other from the other side of the earth (instead of snailmail where a letter took forever to be read and responded to), it nevertheless is still a big change when you can't spontaneously meet up anymore for a short coffee, a swim in the public pool, or for a playground meeting on a lazy Friday afternoon.

I feel that this important step requires enough time for reflection, for joint moments of joy and farewell, and for making sure we know how to keep in touch with each other while being physically apart. It also makes me realize of how many friendships have evolved and made our live beautiful and rich here in Zürich over the last few years. Which is something one is not that much aware when you're in the everyday treadmill of life.

Joining a movement?

I found it interesting to see the reactions of a lot of our friends and colleagues who have shared with me the admiration for such a courageous step that we've taken, and how almost all of them have actually already played with the thought of moving somewhere else and start a new phase of their life completely from scratch. I think COVID has unleashed some of those dreams and has resulted in people getting increasingly aware of the importance of doing what one deeply cares about, and most often this resulted in job changes if not more.

Let's see what this change will bring to our live, I am at once deeply excited about what's next and at the same time emotionally also sad of leaving my beloved friends and family behind! I am, however, convinced that it's the right thing to try out for now.