From London to Portugal. A Relationship in 3 Acts. 
by Laura Onea

London

Ten years in this city. The city of possibilities, they say. The city of cultural differences that allow oneself to purposefully blend in, they say. It feels like a lifetime. One of the many other lives I feel I’ve lived so far. The transition to the next one, full of uncertainties of all sorts, feels heavier than any previous one. Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s an identity crisis search. Maybe it’s all the imprints left by past experiences. All the versions of me that died, and all those who haven’t died yet, although I wish they did. All the versions of me that came alive (and took me by surprise). London pushed me out of my shell. Big time. It taught me that the shell was thinner than I thought, in a good way. Inside of it there was fire, creative juice. A spark hard to contain once released. London defined my values, solidified my voice. It cracked me open to possibilities, to the many different forms that humans take, myself including. It also gave me good reasons to gradually fall out of love with it.

Act 1. Lost in translation 

London: Why did you move here? 
Laura: For love, I think. To be with Ștefan. But maybe to escape. A life that was unfulfilling. A little life. Or maybe to know myself better. To know what I don’t know (about the world) and what I have forgotten (about myself). To catch myself before it was too late. I didn’t know all this back then. 
London: What took you so long? 
Laura: There’s always been an itch for something that I couldn’t quite articulate and that has become increasingly louder (and scarier) as I would explore my inner world in more depth. I didn’t plan for it. It took me as much as it needed to take, I guess, which is hard to accept, not to mention embody. LONDON, what does that even mean? 
London: Hmm, you’re being so abstract. 
Laura: Let me ask you something now. MAY I? 
London: You may very well so. 
Laura: Why is socialising at the pub such a big thing here? Crowding like penguins in distress outside a door that leads to a shabby indoor smelling of cheap beer and old upholstery. Men dressed in suits too tight or too short for their bodies, on a pit stop from a job that doesn’t fit them well either, only they think it does. To afford that cheap beer. Girls in high heels and often cheap garments made of sequins and nylon (so much plastic!) showing off their bodily parts, continuing their display of youth energy in the underground station smelling of cheap booze, burnt tires and vintage souls. 
London: MIND THE GAP and mind your own business! You’ve been welcomed here, so make the most of it. Plus, there’s so much to explore. It’s buzzing with art and culture. With people and contrasts of all sorts. 
Laura: Where do I even start? Everything feels so big, that I can’t even make myself get out of the house sometimes. What if I get lost? Who am I in this motley city? How do I BECOME a part of it? 
London: Start somewhere. Anywhere is good. Like, for example, the canal. You live in such a beautiful area of this city - Little Venice - just roam about and have a taste of the city’s many pulses. I can tell you have an adventurous heart. Laura: How can you tell? 
London: I can see it in your big playful eyes. 
Laura: You know what I like? 
London: Oh, this feels big, for some reason. What?
Laura: Taking the front seat on the top part of a double decker bus and notice life going by. It feels like I’m watching a movie and I’m in the front row. So close to it, yet from afar. It feels easier to encompass so much from a double decker. Naive, probably. I like my naivety. 
London: You’re on to something. Follow that inner sign and get lost… 

Act 2. Falling in love 

London: I see you coming out of your shell. 
Laura: Marcel the Shell put her Shoes On and is now going places. Timidly, but with intention. A tiny step forward that feels like a big achievement. So much to explore, indeed, so much to learn. I’m meeting British people in London, one or two have become friends, and I’m showing them around in their own city. The itch to explore is back, clearly. My therapist, H, is of a warm countenance and soft spoken, yet she keeps a solid distance to which I’m not used to. Therapists in Romania are a different breed, they tend to become one version of a friend. And so I crave for more closeness, although I know she’s my therapist and that she shouldn’t be my friend. Clearly, I’m missing friends. Anyway, we’re doing all these exercises meant to rewire long overdue behavioural patterns and I’m an A level student. As usual. I’m starting to understand that’s a coping mechanism in itself. That visceral need for a perfectly put together puzzle. 
London: Would you say this is your home now? 
Laura: I don’t know but I’m falling for it. Romania doesn’t feel like home anymore. I’m expanding and it feels too tight. Should one have peeled off the epidermis of my being, one would have perceived the tightness from long before this opportunity arose. I am still getting used to so much politeness and empty wording, yet I love how everyone greets and thanks the bus driver. Or how people decorate their boats – and even more so, that boats become their homes. I am not living by the canal anymore. People seem to move every two years in this city, so much for BELONGING! 
In memory of my first years spent in a Little Venice in a big London, but also to make some money really, I created a quest – an adventure story – for a city exploration app. It’s called “Little Venice in London: A Journey Through Lost Memories”. People seem to enjoy exploring London through my storytelling. I also enjoyed the making of it. 
London: You seem to have grown some roots. Would you see yourself in this country for a long while? 
Laura: I don’t know about this Brexit thing (what were you people even thinking with this move?!), but moving past it and other cultural imprints that don’t quite align with my being, I could indeed picture myself here in the long run. My creative energy is finally finding a playground that feels endless to explore. The novelty, the variety of such a gargantuan space keeps my dopamine levels in check. Bustling spots in sharp contrast to green neighbourhoods less saturated with people, are an appropriate pitch for the demands of my personality. Nature… well, my wilderness misses the wilderness of enchanted forests and high peaks. The coast, though, is a good enough substitute for this lack, for now. And London is a great epicentre for engaging with the whole wide world, anyway. Far from the madding crowds, the picture perfect British countryside awakens the lust for a life I’ve only encountered in books. The image of a funky old lady with red lips and silver curls, gathering travelers in her cosy living room smelling of posh lattes, gets a hold of me (my future self can’t help laughing hard at this naive dream). 

A pleasant interruption

Not yet the end of colour. Not yet bareness either. In that liminal space I find myself in – like a suspension between an ending and a new beginning. I’ve never been good at being in one. Or I haven’t been paying enough attention. Perhaps until now? 

While strolling along the river, contemplating the (almost) naked trees, branches held together by the remaining leaves resembling festive ornaments, the present moment feels like a soothing necessity. Like a fabric softener. Like a reminder to trust. To find safety in my decisions and the process they stitch together towards a future that feels good in my body. 

I lean into nature and the nature of things, knowing that will always decongest the unnecessary and allow me to think less and feel more. I remember I love the abundance of nature’s colours and its lush coats, as much as I love the vulnerability of its nakedness. 

Act 3. The chaos, the grief and falling out of love 

London: Look at you growing your creative playgrounds and moving in and around the city as if you’ve been here all along. 
Laura: Yes, it feels like I’m gaining momentum yet these creative clothes are often not a good fit. They either stretch me too much or limit my movement. Like something (important) is not quite matching. I want them to fit but I don’t want to fit in. A rebel in distress. A non-conformist and disruptor burned out by her own energy. 

A not so pleasant interruption – a tipping point – shaking humanity and the building blocks of what I’ve managed to erect; yet it was something different altogether that turned my Universe upside down. I would only grasp it in the aftermath.

London: It’s oh so quiet! Streets are empty of hurrying footprints and noises of all sorts that would skillfully block one’s inner noises. Nature grows in places I haven’t seen her touch upon in a very long while. Foxes are no longer shy. Eyes piercing in confusion and fear through the looking-glass, knowing yet not knowing. A strange feeling to be void of the usual buzz. 
Laura: It feels like it’s the last of us – deaths of all sorts, people in division rather than union, a historical tendency in the face of a calamity – and I’m scared of its meaning beyond the physicality. There’s a quiet softness, in contrast to this stifled turmoil, that invades my inner knowing. My creativity has more space and less pressure to unfold itself. The outside eerie has turned down the volume on my overactive mind. My body, even, has more space to run without needing to slalom between cars and honks. Wilderness primes over the human species, which is the natural course of things. There’s more space to breathe who one is, even if that means pain crawling up to the surface. No crowds anywhere. Ok, maybe just the supermarkets, which is weird but it also reminds me of my sweet and gentle grandfather holding my hands needing gentle holding, while queuing for milk and bread in Romania of the late 80s. Is this even a memory? But anyway, it feels pleasant and fun in my body, despite the harsh reality back then. 

Shyly indulging in this new reality, feelings of guilt and discomfort creep in. Am I being too selfish? Too privileged maybe? 

London: I don’t know. I, too, feel uncomfortable in this newly acquired comfort I didn’t know I needed. 
Things gradually (feels sudden and intrusive) go back to normal (feels abnormal and loud). There’s now enough toilet paper and friction to hide by. 
London: We’re finally free to go on with our lives. And decide for ourselves. Laura: You call this freedom? 
London: What then? 
Laura: It’s like Black Friday mania. Sellers raise their prices before the awaited weekend – which has now converted into a three-week long illusion – and then tell you it’s cheap. Perfect time to justify your compulsions. And loneliness. And believe it was your choice. 

*

It’s a freedom that feels tight on me. More like a cage really, where people run in all directions and mindlessly stumble upon each other. They call it life. But it’s William Golding on repeat. It’s been like this for centuries, since we’ve decided we’re a superior species over other species. I’ve always known that what’s generally deemed normal, doesn’t sit well with my spirit. A knowing that has been amplified in this aftermath. So has my need to break free. It has also become increasingly harder to do so, in a world where hustle is praised and fear of missing out has triggered coping mechanisms we didn’t even know we had - we no longer mind the gaps in the quest for reaching individual targets. Despite the declared crave for human connection, we’re still stuck in virtual realities. We’ve sterilised the connection, just as we did with surfaces of all kinds. We’ve become vulnerable to touch, as we’ve interfered with a diverse microbiome. 

So, no, we won’t be able to just go on with our lives without acknowledging what has just happened (beyond the surface). I’m scared to admit – yet I do find it necessary – that outside of the seemingly main context, the abnormality was in fact normality. The pace, at least. The space. The fragile yet existent equilibrium. 

London: What do I have to do with all this? Feels like you’re mad at me, somehow. 
Laura: I don’t know who I’m mad at. At you. At a dismantled and increasingly dysfunctional society. At the people who broke loose like wild animals (that’s an insult to the animals, though) to finish their unfinished businesses in an obsessive rush, oblivious to the fact that they’ve been at a tipping point they haven’t yet processed. Maybe at myself for feeling everything deeply. Isn’t it all one and the same – you, me, people, society? 
There’s no time! (shouts the chorus)
Well, yes, there’s no time to spend the time on a screen instead of looking out the window, daydreaming, contemplating a neighbour and wondering what their life looks like. 
There’s more and more of us everywhere, yet I can rarely catch someone’s gaze, as everyone seems to be trapped in a reality they adorn their own with. The notion of one’s beauty has become heavily distorted too. Augmented features that nature intended for a reason. Sameness – another disruptor of a diverse microbiome. So I don’t even want to look in those directions. My heart falls to the ground. But how can I not, when that, too, has become an epidemic of sorts? 

I can’t match this rhythm really. I don’t want to. While you seem to go along with it. 

London: Well hold on, you got all heated up. Breathe a little. You fell in love, once. They say all relationships are like this. They need maintenance, looking at it from a new lens, and remembering why you fell in love in the first place. How’s this one any different? 
Laura: Well that’s what I don’t know how to come to terms with. You’re obviously past the expiration date in my life, yet letting (YOU) go cuts deep into my identity. Too big-and-significant a breakup. You gave me enough reasons to fall out of love with, yet I still love you, London. In between two selves I am. Maybe we just need a break? Or maybe I’m fooling myself and I just need to move on. A death is a death. Keeping the treasures. Mourning. And opening up to life.

December 2025
Ericeira, Portugal