A few days ago, via a cyberspace platform, I wished happy birthday to an old work friend; someone whose rare pureness of mind and good nature had marked her out as a ‘good ‘un’ and preserved a space for her in my phone contacts, although we hadn’t spoken since my arrival in Tel-aviv nearly a year ago.
It was a warm but brief message of appropriate feeling, slightly generic but livened up with a few exclamation marks - you know the kind.
Expecting a simple ‘thank you and take care’, I was surprised to hear that she had decided to take off from the UK for a year to live in her family’s middle-Eastern homeland. The news that she was ‘doing a runner’, like I had done the year previously, induced a mad keyboard-tapping session, resulting in a message of encouragement and excitement that I realised had been sitting inside my subconscious for too long without being properly exposed in my regular ramblings. I therefore felt inclined to share with you the reply I made, for it captured in a short space more than I knew was in my heart.
Rafi,
Wow your move is going to be wonderful. You only live once, no point spending it trapped in the same place.
We are lucky we have outside bases to call home and feel a part of.
I’m good, not looking forward to returning ‘home’ but know it’s only so that I can drive my writing forward and eventually return to try and make a living as a freelance writer out here in Tel-Aviv. I just love the lifestyle and feel in my bones that this is where I am meant to be. I felt half dead in London and for that reason drowned myself in going out, drinking, and doing things that are not 'me'.
Here I wake up every morning and feel like I actually want to get out of bed.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m broke every week as the salaries are dire, but it’s not a culture that requires as much money. Everyone’s in the same boat, enjoying life on what they have and looking after the pennies together. You can go out all night here without spending a cent as bars don’t charge entry fee, you can walk everywhere and people just don’t drink so heavily. I hardly go shopping but then again I’m surrounded by people in flip-flops and shorts; if I was buying the type of expensive clothes I wore in London I’d be positively laughed at!
The weather is wonderful and the scenery is just unbelievable. The people are warm and connected through their nation’s turbulent history so that really only the important things matter here - family, love and having fun. Israelis work as a means to an end; they rarely finish work and go straight home, no matter what age.
Ok enough yabbering. All im trying to show is that London life can be such a bubble, kept intact by status and good money oppurtunities. It can suck you in and dissolve the world around it. When you get the chance to leave you see what life can really offer.
I know you will be extremely happy as you appreciate the more important things in life other than just a good salary, which I’m sure with your experience you could make out there also.
Take care sweetie and enjoy your new adventure, it's going to be great!
She replied to me with a huge amount of gratuity and thanks, and I felt good, not only for helping her on her journey to a new life, but for reminding myself why it is I am out here.
