Some things are coming to an end
Autumn beckons
This week has been one of the hottest I have experienced in Germany and yet there is a definite taint of autumn in the air.
The sun is lower in the sky than a mere month ago. The trees have lost some of their more vibrant green tones to be replaced with a muddy brown.
And with the first fingers of autumn mist comes a feeling of change. I feel like one chapter of my life is slowly coming to an end. And I have no idea when the next one will begin.
I have felt this growing restelssness in the back of my mind for some time. A kind of ambient insecurity. A feeling that there is something just out of my grasp that I can’t quite reach.
This is due to a number of interrelated issues. The journey that I am currently on regularly sends me through feelings of joy and desperation. I have some family issues to sort out which has thrown certain aspects of my life into question.
What was once a given, something which I took for granted, is now thrown into question. I am forced to address things which make me deeply uncomfortable. Things that will affect my future life trajectory.
The bottom line is – I will be moving at some point in the not-too-distant future.
As some of you may know I live in Frankfurt am Main. I have lived in the same altbau apartment together with my partner since 2017.
Getting this apartment was not easy. I must have gone to at least 30 massen Besichtigungen ( crowd apartment viewings) until I chanced upon this one.
I instantly fell in love with it. The high ceilings, the spacious balcony looking out onto a tree covered courtyard. And best of all? The silence. Although it is in a busy area the building block shuts out the sounds and sights of the big city. It felt like this could be my own oasis.
I applied for it right away. I sent all my details over but never heard anything back. I was crestfallen. I continued to search for something else. But I found myself subconsciously comparing all the following apartments to this one. The one which I had fallen in love with.
I just couldn’t find anything that came close. Three months went by and desperation was starting to set in. I started to lower my standards and was just about to accept an apartment that I did not even remotely like when I received a call.
As if by fate it was that apartment that I had instantly felt a connection to. They wanted to know if I was still interested in it.
It felt like the stars had aligned and the universe was giving me what I wanted. I accepted and moved in.
Because of this I have built up a certain emotional attachment to the place and still don’t feel quite ready to leave it.
But things have changed in the area that I live in.
Prior to the lockdowns, this area of the city (Bahnhof Viertel) was hyped as the up-and-coming district in Frankfurt. It was marketed as a cultural melting pot of creativity and innovation.
A home for artists, creatives, small business owners and those seeking a life outside of cultural norms. Many bars, restaurants and clubs opened up here catering to culture vultures and urban explorers. Even though this district has always been the home of drug addicts, prostitution, and underground clubs up until 2020 there was a sense of upward momentum.
There was an atmosphere of counterculture. The district acted as mediation point between a myriad different classes and cultures. Bankers and beggers, Students and tourists, urban hipsters and cultural trendsetters. All masking a deeper underlying grey market current of rival gangs vying for control of the area.
Now much of this upward momentum has petered out. The lockdowns did lasting damage that seems to have altered the trajectory of the place. Many local business have closed down or moved out of the area.
They are unanimously replaced with either a Döner shop, a kiosk or Handy Laden (a mobile phone repair shop). In fact this is so ubiquitous that it has become somewhat of an in joke
My apartment is still the peaceful oasis that it was back in 2017 and yet I’ve developed a kind of ambient insecurity. As the number of drug addicts and homeless people increase in the area I find myself having to step over bodies of passed put junkies on my way to work.
Smashed in car windows and torn off wing mirrors regularly litter the street. What used to be the occasional encounter is now a daily occurrence.
This is something which a tourist or casual passerby might not necessarily pick up on. Afterall it’s taken several years for me to become fully aware of it myself.
With the onset of autumn, I feel myself starting to emotionally detach from this place. A place that has given me so much comfort and joy over the years.
I feel once again strangely untethered.
It might happen in a month it might take a year but I feel like the time has come for a new beginning.
Before you go it would really help me out if you could answer this one question for me.
Do you prefer to receive:
personal stories (like this one) or
Researched essays on broader topics (religion, technology, the west)
Thanks so much
All the best and many greetings
Benjamin.
I know what you mean about the Bahnhofsvertiel in Frankfurt. I have been there for work and was recommended an Indian restaurant (which was brilliant) near there, and it was a lot of homeless helpless people there, and the area did smell a bit of, lets just keep this polite, uncleaned public toilets. I can see how it had a lot of potential, and still does, I suppose these homeless people are kinda victims, ok, some of them did choose to live on the streets in their drug addled/alcohol infused minds, but I am sure that all of them would appreciate a roof over their heads and a warm meal. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about.
I had a similar challenging situation in the last few months, without going into a long diatribe about it, my parents sold their house, the one that I grew up in and moved into a retirement community. That really felt like someone had taken away the last vestige of what would always be considered home.
Then at a similar time that they moved, my old landlord told me that he was moving back in to his apartment that I have been living in for 10,5 years, which then also really broke my heart. The thought of having to find somewhere to live again was super stressful, and like you mentioned, a bunch of applications, not that many responses and then the few that I did get were massen besichtigungen. The one landlord doing one of the viewings mentioned to me that while my German was good, he would actually rather prefer a German citizen living there, and you know, at least I am not one of "those" people. I was really lucky to then find another place, obviously a lot more expensive than the old one and now no longer in the city, but in a (lovely) town in München Kreis.
It's taken a bit of time to get used to it, and now I'm a lot happier and a lot less stressed about everything. I hope that whenever you do decide to move that you get somewhere equally cool that grabs your heart(s) and you can start down the next path (or side path) of your lives :)
Hi Antoine,
you are in good company feeling this 'ambient insecurity'. It's what I keep hearing from folks I know - quite unlike it used to be in the past. A kind of generalized autumn vibe, yet not in the romantic sense. Probably many people in the West feel threatened by the changing global economical and political situation. I won't even get a closer look at Germany and its current problems.
Of course your feeling that way has a very concrete foundation. Jesus, I had no idea how decrepit the Bahnhofsviertel had become. Sounds worse even than Berlin-Neukölln.
How attached one can be to a place like an appartement I know very well because I feel the same way. What a nightmare the idea of having to move from this huge Altbauwohnung in one of the best neighborhoods (at least to me) of Berlin. Which considering my age and a possible change of landlord might happen some day.
Whatever - if I was younger I would try to leave the city anyway and move to the countryside or a much smaller city or town. If there were jobs of course one could get to without a four hour commute.
So how are your chances of finding an appropriate new appartement? Will you stay in the city or maybe move to somewhere in the Main-Taunus-Kreis? I hope you will succeed soon and I wish you good luck.
BTW, I prefered personal stories but actually I like research based essays as well. Keep them coming. Both of them.
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