What was I looking for when I decided to move to the land of wet, cold, and rainy Sundays? What was I hoping to achieve when I packed my suitcases with determination and flew here in a pre-pandemic easiness? But more importantly, what was I trying to escape from? 

I count myself very privileged to have the audacity to make life-decisions simply based on dreams and hopes.  Some years later, I am now walking the dogs through very wet and muddy, dark green park scenery: Isn’t this the freedom I wanted, only a little colder? 

It certainly feels like I am experiencing British life at its best. After the walks, I come home to an old-fashioned high-pitched tone of a boiling kettle; doesn’t it sound like my new definition of success?

Feeling the warmth of the oven, sipping on my de-caff while looking into a wonderful winter garden; isn’t this my goal? Isn’t it here in the stronghold of cosiness where my heart can heal, and I can stubbornly ignore my financial situation to allow myself to live a life of illusion? The illusion I created smells of fresh coffee, biscuits, and a hint of freedom. Which is, considering that we are living in a time where freedom has become debatable and reconstructed, quite a big achievement. 

Didn’t I manage to escape the world of predefined values, a world where opinions are needed and fired at each other as though on a battlefield? 

My sweet little rebellious life has a newly added sound of a snoring dog in the background and a view onto a winter garden. I marvel at my illusion – for a little while at least.  I wallow in the false feeling of freedom until I get reminded that money is still required in this world.