London, London, London. 

So, the wheels touched down, and the fog and mist became evident. It was not the familiar feeling I was expecting upon touchdown. Having previously been star-struck by the copious amount of people with a British accent and the potential of the city, I reached the city with a level of exhaustion I wish to never experience again. The weight of the trip was waning on me; it was hardly planned for a start, but secondly, saying goodbye to family and friends was more intense than a casual holiday. The story of London and I would need several more pages to fully encompass the complexity of it, so for the time being, I will keep it short.

 

The high I expected from touching down in London would much better be described as content, a sense of ease and familiarity mixed with a sense of anticipation and subtle excitement for what felt like the inevitable success that would arise. It was as though I knew how to navigate the city. For starters, it is more of an international city than it feels strictly British, and for this, it became natural to effortlessly move through the streets. With every walk I took into town, it simply just felt as if my life had just started. The movie had finally started playing, and everything prior was a boring montage that only took up a solid five minutes. To clarify, I don’t believe this was exclusive to London, it happens on every trip I take, however, this felt especially potent, as London marked the beginning of my four-month travel. It was also the place I was supposed to build my life, and, well, that didn’t quite happen.

 

Regardless, London was deemed my musical home. I was nestled in a town outside of Camden, called Kentish Town. It couldn’t have sounded more British. I spent my days doing what I often enjoy doing, long walks across the channels, through the parks, and into the city, taking in the modern and old mixed, and how it so elegantly fixed with ease. I will always have a soft spot for this city; after having spent so much time daydreaming of living there, the time I spent there feels less elated and more content. This time in London, I was potentially more temperamental than I had been in the past. The shine had worn off with every city noise that I heard. It became irritating. The man in suits and women in heels was, for lack of a better word, ‘triggering’, and, well, it scared me. This was part of the dream, this was part of the plan and the aesthetic, and yet here I was, enjoying it in the early hours of the morning, the quiet stillness. Perhaps this is the natural side effect of maturing and growing up, but something within me signalled that it might just be the breaking down of the armour I had so proudly worn, defending this dream.  Just to expose my true desires which did not, in fact, mirror the one I had declared with certainty for years. 

 

An additional layer to this was confronted when I had  some writing sessions (music song-writing sessions), only to discover that I am not a person who ‘just loves good music’. I love music, undeniably, but I am more in love with stories, imagery, and the overall creation of a world. I couldn’t articulate that freely at the time, but I remember leaving the sessions with some discomfort, almost despair. ‘This doesn’t feel like it is supposed to.’ My experience of London at large, was not so much about the 'city', but rather the inner dialogue that so overwhelming drowns out any objective judgements on the city.