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Burcu

@dburchu

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Starting over between London & Italy 🇬🇧🇮🇹
Mindset, routines & the small pleasures of rebuilding a life.
💌 Dear Demi - letters on starting over ↓

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A few pieces of me… for anyone new here.
Between London & Rome. Starting again.
I write about the brutally honest version of starting over in your 40s. Substack link in bio. 🌿 by @dburchu

I’ve never felt more ‘me’ than I do here. It wasn’t a logical move, it wasn’t a planned move, but it was the best move. My version of ‘La Dolce Vita’ ➡️ which is mostly just me trying to figure out how to live in a new decade. ✨

#reinvention #lifeinrome #startingoveragain #womenover40 by @dburchu

So ‘What was I doing in London before Rome?’ Fair question.

At 24, I moved to the UK. Alone. To learn English. My family and friends thought I’d be back in 6 months because I was that person—completely attached to home, couldn’t imagine life anywhere else.

Plot twist: I stayed. I got my master’s degree. I built a career in tech. My last job? Good figures. I bought my own flat. I had the whole ‘successful London life’ thing down.

And then… hey I’m here in Rome now. ☀️

Turns out, I like starting over. Some people collect plants. I ‘aim’ to collect new lives in different countries. ✨

So yeah, if you’re wondering if I’m scared—yeeesss. But I’ve done this before. And I’ll probably do it again. So stay tuned for Part 3: ‘Why I’m moving to Lisbon in 2027.’

#reinvention #womanover40 #startingagain #lifeinrome #lifeinlondon by @dburchu

Sometimes all you need is to be on the road… ☀️ by @dburchu

I found myself in Split and it deserved a dump ☀️

Some business stuff

Some work done

October sea

Dived in

Some smiles

Colours

New friends

Always pistachio

Running scenes

Game of Thrones vibes

Narrow streets

Some good food

Cold but blu sky

Sunsets

And the end 🌙 by @dburchu

A bit of lightness ✨ by @dburchu

Oh… look who is here after a long and quite challenging few months.

Started summer off with plans and hoped for days filled with sea and sun…

Instead ended up in emergency rooms every other week…

Summer turned out to be staying home, taking medicines and walks only after sunsets.

And reading in Italian while understanding fifty per cent at most… Ahh and a lot of interviews.

Extended time in Istanbul between tests, doctors and two continents.

Finally recovered and returned home in London after being stranded in the airport for more than 12h… because systems collapsed.

Shortly after off to somewhere in Italy… for the reason which wasn’t in the plan for this year but surprises hey!

I had some of the happiest days of late summer

while starting my dream remote work…

and while liking someone a bit more than the other people in the universe…

Somethings are always missed.

Back to London for now, though between multiple countries until the end of the year. That’s life! 💫💫 by @dburchu

What I’ve needed lately is smaller. A sentence. Something to hold for the next hour. ✨

#mindset #softliving #intentionalliving by @dburchu

The art of summering ☀️

#reinventyourself #livingwithintention #mindset #identityshift #softliving by @dburchu

Two voices, same head.

Both are always available. I just get to choose which one I let win ✨

Wrote about this exact tug-of-war on my Dear Demi letters — link in bio or comment link to receive it directly.

#reinventyourself #mindset #womenover40 #identityshift #livingwithintention by @dburchu

Guess where!?

#lifeinrome by @dburchu

8 months ago I moved to Rome on my own, in my 40s, with a vague plan and a lot of feelings.

Here’s the honest version. Not the montage. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Rome handed me a mirror and a lot of quiet, and made me look. Some of what I saw was lovely. Some of it was the anxiety I’d been outrunning with a full calendar for twenty years.

Starting over isn’t a clean break. It’s messier and more human than that. And you can hold the poetry and the paperwork at the same time.

So this is a summer break. Then… we’ll see what future brings.

#reinventyourself #identityshift #mindset #womenover40 by @dburchu