Hannover - Where to go from here?

Hannover

Hannover – and where to go from there?

What if your focus slips? What if you aren't all in? Are you left with nothing at all?

I did think a long time about giving up our life in New York City and returning to my former university town, Hannover. I suppose the first sentence alone will make many of you wonder how I was able to do that 24 years after I had left that place, which is described by many as one of the most boring cities in Germany.

In my last blog, I said that I eventually fell out of love with New York City and that my children Isabela and Alessandro and me needed a big change. I wanted to ensure that my children would be able to succeed at the German Gymnasium. German people would never admit it, but the Gymnasium is a place for the elite, who want to take advantage of a high quality and demanding public school form based on their children intelligence and not their parents bank accounts. No offense…

We left New York after another amazing gay pride and arrived in Hannover on July 1st, 2024, on a rainy and cold day. Thus, I received the initial glimpse of the forthcoming months, which would not be without its challenges. Even though I had been skeptical about the move in the first place, there were good reasons why I hadn't been excited about our life there. Even Prince Ernst August of Hannover and his family left the city a few years ago, it came as no surprise.

When I look back at Hannover, then I see myself as a young student who studied, worked, and partied hard in the late 1990's. I was one of the best students in my class with a bright and exciting future ahead of me. While some of my students were ready to settle into lifelong jobs and be sure that they would inherit their father's multifamily houses in the Suedstadt of Hannover, I was driven by hunger and ambition. I wanted to achieve my goals and live my life.

We took exams together and hit all the hot clubs in the city back then, we were part of the 'in scene,' and most of us were wearing our black leather jackets from Wormland and felt like we were on top of our game. The reality, however, was that we didn't have much more in common than that. Things would quickly turn sour after my return to Hannover, some 24 years later.

While it is unclear for me at this moment if either the rather quiet or slow city of Hannover began to make me miserable or the adjustment struggles of my entire family, I definitely felt that something was wrong, when I experienced falling into a deep hole and not being understood by those close to me. While everything was shutting down in Hannover on the weekends, I felt like I was losing all of my energy and excitement.

I know those words sound strong. When someone doesn't have the energy to get up in the mornings, there's something seriously wrong with them. Neither the annual Maschsee Fest, which appears to grant the entire Hannover population the right to indulge in excessively priced beverages, nor the ACDC concert nor the monthly benefits payments "Kindergeld" from the German Government were able to alter this situation.

It didn't help that some of my old friends wanted to tell me how to act and behave, and what to say and think. People gave me a lot of useless advice without taking into account my own circumstances. I began to distance myself and fell deeper and deeper into that hole until I found my son sitting next to me after a Saturday morning breakfast while I was just trying to rest on my bed. That was the turning point, and I hope to give all of you some faith back now.

On the following day, I picked up myself and went to the gym. I made sure I was working out for exactly 60 minutes, and the next morning, I got up at 5:15am for my run around the Maschsee. I figured out pretty quickly that if I can get myself out of bed at 5:15am, the rest of the day is going to be pretty good and I'm in charge of it.

So what do we do, if our focus slips, if we are not all in and if we are afraid that after having giving up our fabulous life in New York City we are actually left with nothing at all in a quiet and slightly boring city like Hannover? My experience is that it would be a smart move NOT to buy an overpriced apartment and become a slave to a mortgage and dream, which had never been ours but those of others.

Even if we have kids and work, we can still have a happy life on our own. We shouldn't listen to others who think differently. I will always enjoy the runs around the Maschsee and the fresh bakery from Baecker Borchers and its friendly staff in Hannover.

But life is too short, and I came to the conclusion that sometimes in life we simply cannot reconnect with the past, and we need to accept that it is time to find a different path. And we must do whatever it takes to walk that path all the way to the finish line.

Even if it seems that we have returned to the beginning and started over again, we should acknowledge that we have become different people and that it is never too late to live our own dreams.

And that is what our time in Hannover is all about until we leave the city again.