Walthamstow

Everything is growing. New, modern houses emerge from places where there was once nothing but rubble. Old houses are being renewed by their new owners who appreciate their values - you see mosaic doorways, colourful front door windows, sophisticated colour paints and terracotta vases by the doors.
It's the same place yet the air talks about new life here. It was once a dirty suburb - now it is a modern residential area for families and professionals where they can plan their future.
The place has not stayed the way it was long ago. It managed to take the tide and to transform itself into a new quality. It did get outside help (the nearby Olympics nearly a decade ago poured new investment into the area) but it didn't stop there. Walthamstow reinvented itself as a new centre of humane living for all. Multicultural, definitely, but it's not even an issue anymore. It's for the people.
How did it happen? How did this dirty, boring, sometimes even depressing area become a cool place to live?
It seems like it has taken its values seriously. It looked inside and found all the different positive features its diverse people carry. And then it used them to grow.
While I'm walking in Walthamstow I feel like I'm young. I have left this place 13 years ago but walking down the same streets makes me feel like time has disappeared. I'm full of energy, and everything is possible in my life.
Yet Walthamstow is different now. It didn't let itself be determined by its past. It is a modern place now that is proud of its own ways and values.
It also resonates with my life.
I'm who I was before, the young girl who came here to build her own life. But I am now a strong woman who would never give herself up for whatever nice promises she would get. I have looked inside myself and discovered every different values I found along my path and I am willing to construct a future for those who belong to me. I am enough as a home for my children and I am not shaken by outside danger. 
I am Walthamstow. My home is inside me.

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