How do you say good bye? How do I say good bye? How can I go after seven years? What is this? What is this doing to me? To the others? To my children?
After seven years I am leaving New Zealand. After seven years and the initial certainty that I wanted to stay. Maybe for good.
And now I am leaving. In a little more than two weeks my plane is departing for Athens. It’s a farewell and a new beginning. Sure, there will be new challenges. But that is not what I am talking about. First of all this is a good bye. Today I had my farewell event at my hospice. And I didn’t know what to think and what to feel. They asked me about my excitement for my new adventure. But I just felt weird. After seven years you don’t say just good bye, turn around and go.
You invest. You invest yourself into a place. Into a work. Into the people you are together with. You build a house. Step by step, brick by brick. And all of a sudden you stop. And the building has not been completed yet. And you decide to go and leave it to a new and different builder. This is weird.
How do you say good bye as a father to your children? Can you ever do that? Can you ever go away? I am not explaining this here in public. That doesn’t make sense. Only thing - there is no answer to that question. And it will never be over.
The farewell to the people, the country, my work, my photography in New Zealand is more real. I do have new challenges. There are new plans, new wishes, new ideas. I am curious, I am flexible, I am seeking new opportunities and I am excited. Greece will give me plenty of all that I am wishing for.
And new love. A new love that changes everything. That turns my life around. A new love. Today, tomorrow and hopefully for the rest of my life.
This is a farewell letter. A leaving letter. But also a new-beginning letter. An arriving letter. A hope letter. A pain letter. How will it be? How does a life develop? We will see. Yes, we will wait and see.