Recently I found this note in my 2021 diary: “Moved into this apartment five days ago, waiting for loneliness to catch up, but it hasn’t come.” I had written it in September of that year. I had just moved from Berlin to Istanbul, alone. It was meant to be a three-month stay – the plan was to return to Berlin by Christmas. But I didn’t return. It has now been more than three years and I’ve never felt more alive.
Before the move abroad, I’d lived with my partner for more than a decade. I was well acquainted with sharing life and space. Being truly alone within four walls was as new to me as my neighbourhood on the Bosphorus.
