"Our desire to connect, our need to be the boss."

What a lovely post! What is an Angelina doing in cloudy London??? LOL. Then again you could ask me the same.

I used to love London for its diversity, literally people from all over the world.

I think quietly, secretly, we are all hoping that the madness of the past four years will somehow dissipate and we will be able to once again rejoice in hanging out with each other in the small food stalls and markets across London.

I live in Nuneaton now, the Midlands, quite far away from London yet only an hour of train ride away (3-4 hours by car). Yet London used to be my home for 13 years. That is the longest I've ever lived in any city or even country at one time. I'm a different person in London, I must admit. As soon as I step off the train at Euston, I literally shift into a higher gear, I FEEL faster inside, I move faster accordingly to match the traffic and all my senses are on high alert to avoid getting run over by a car or bycicle. Walking among the crowds, which made me dizzy in my first months of moving to London, has become a matter of doing it automatically.

But the change is also in personality. I'm less patient, more agressive. Yes, I can still be nice, but it costs me more energy.

I don't miss my London attitude, but I do miss discovering new old buildings and tiny streets and romantic gardens in the City.

But as you pointed out, our need to be the boss has shrunk, just as our need to connect has increased, at least for the moment.

We have hugely underestimated how much we need each other, a simple touch, a look, receiving a 'hello'. Never before have people been so happy when I greet them.

We...need...each other.

This need should become far grater than any other basic instinct we still seem to hone, like fear and greed. At the end of the day, we can't get a hug from our bank account. And being afraid of people simply because they are unknown to us, also doesn't help bridging that distance and get some affection, right?:)