It was a crisp late‑summer afternoon and we were walking along the Spree near Löhmühlenstraße. One of our favourite walks, near one of my favourite trees. We have done this loop a million times by now. But this time something felt strange.

I kept finding myself staring at every dog that trotted past, some with their humans and some confidently without. I could see that Niki had a similar look on his face. It is not sad, not happy. It is longing. A small hope that one of them suddenly takes an interest in us.

We did our usual thing: letting my brain throw out its greatest hits.

“The other day I saw a really cute startup working with dogs, I wonder if they hire PMs.”

“I have to close my OKRs…in a realistic way”

“Should I not be doing my own OKRs? What even is the meaning of OKRs?”

“Did I discuss that xyz (work-related) thing with abc (work-related) person?”

“Do I like being a PM? I do like my job.. i love my job. On most days I am good at it.. right?”

“It is so cold today.”

“Maybe I am falling sick again, is that why my head hurts?”

“Did I do a single productive thing today, lol?”

“ice-cream?”

“Maybe I should delete Instagram.”

Somewhere between the third OKR and the fifth minor existential crisis, the real sentence finally arrived.

“I think I am done with Berlin,” I said.

This thought had been simmering quietly at the back of my mind for weeks. Suddenly, it was the clearest thought in a long time, slicing cleanly through all the background noise. When I said it out loud, it did not sound like a cry for help or a white flag or a breakdown. It sounded uncomplicated, resonant, and undeniably true.

“I think we are done with Berlin,” Niki said.

We had been circling around this, subconsciously, for months if not years. It is not that we are not incredibly grateful for our lives in this beautiful city. If anything, our friends, our routines, my weekly sauna rituals, the EDEKA nashis, our cosy home near the most beautiful tree — all of this makes it very easy to nip this nonsense in the bud. It is the most comfortable “no‑brainer” in the world.

But then the questions started growing little tentacles, reaching into the corners of our breakfasts and our commutes. Are we doing what we actually want to do with our days? Are we meant to stay in our comfort zone forever? And most importantly, if we have the privilege to build this life in Berlin, do we not also have the bigger privilege to walk away from it?

Because it is a privilege. To disrupt life as one knows it, on purpose, to go after a version where most things are unknown.

But then again: is it truly unknown? Or do we trust ourselves enough to not be paralysed by that? I know that we know how to make the most of any situation. We live fairly minimal lives; beyond our people, there is not much we cannot leave. I also trust our friendships deeply enough to know that I might miss them badly, but I will never actually lose them.

So what is it then? What is truly keeping us in Berlin?

With each passing day, our answers to ourselves got weaker, and the curiosity about the alternative became louder.

“Where would we even go?”

“I don’t know… somewhere warm?”

"What about our careers?"

"They’ve survived us this long, I think they can handle a sabbatical.”

“What about our home?”

“I feel like you are my home and I am yours. The rest is logistics. But let's let go of Bouchestraße”

“That’s very cute. But what about our actual address?”

"We find another address"

"And our stuff?"

“It’s just stuff, you know. It can be sold or something”

“And our friends?”

“What about them? They’re still our friends. They’re the ones who will visit us in whatever weird corner of the world we land in.”

“What would we even do?”

“Whatever takes our fancy on the day.”

By the end of June 2025, nothing was figured out and nothing was neatly planned. But one thing was suddenly, beautifully clear: We are leaving Berlin. And we are going on an adventure, and for the first time in a long time —truly, since I first arrived here in 2017— the unknown doesn’t feel like a threat to be managed. It feels like an invitation.

In the next story, I’ll tell you about the less-poetic parts: when daydreaming met the reality of eBay Kleinanzeigen, notice periods, and the terrifying logistics of distilling a whole life down to a few suitcases.