The power of place: how our spaces shape us

A tale of two cities, and one identity crisis.

I always identified as a city girl…. until I moved to Valencia

It feels like months since I last wrote a post on here but, checking the calendar, it turns out it’s only been two weeks. Save for August when I took a summer break, I’ve written on this platform every week since the end of February. I think it’s a sign of the habit I’m building that it feels so long (I felt the need to write here tugging on me all this week), but it struck me how quickly our reality can shape-shift.

Last week, I was in the UK for family and work events, and I quickly noticed my sense of 'what's normal' adjusting. Whilst there, I took the opportunity to make the most of my time in London, visiting the Tyk office, and scheduling after-work dinners with old friends who I’d been meaning to catch up with all year. The final night, Wednesday, I headed to an awards do with the team which offered up drinks, dinner and a dance floor that stayed open until 3am (this Cinderella left at midnight).

Putting aside the three days spent with my family, for the following three days in London I was almost entirely work-focused. With Tyk’s support I’ve done a great job of achieving more balance between my work-life and my life-life, and yet in those three or four days, I felt myself become hyper-focused on work to the exclusion of (almost) all else.

Not only did I not write, I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t make it out for a run, despite bringing two sets of gym clothes. I joined my one-hour Spanish conversation class for twenty minutes in which I offered up such fantastically useful comments as ‘Vale’ (Castilian for OK). I spoke to Andy once, for approximately nine minutes.

My slower-paced, closer-to-nature life in Valencia felt like a distant memory. Instead, for a handful of days, I was back in my old London life.

And suddenly thinking: do I miss this?

Do our spaces shift our identities?

I’m not moving back to London anytime soon (sorry, Mum). But this isn’t the first time I’ve realised that when I’m back in the capital, I feel my priorities shift.

There’s an obvious reason for this: I’m often back in London for work, so it would make sense that I dial up the amount of time spent thinking about my professional life whilst I’m there.

But I’m not just talking about the number of hours I spend ‘at the office’. I’m talking about how a city like London can immediately change our parameters of what’s normal - for the good and the bad.