Just in case anyone is keeping track, I recently moved to yet an other place where people don't believe in heating up the house during Wintertime: Rome.
 |
| Piazza Navona |
In my life, I realized, things either move very fast or are still for ages. And yet, when I think of everything that happened over the past five years, I can barely make sense of it.
In five years I got two degrees, lived in four different cities (weeeeelll a village and three cities) and in five different houses, got a calling in life (and then an other one), visited eight different countries - some more than once - started travelling on my own, found out what grieving the loss of a relative means, witnessed my parents getting old and going through illnesses, witnessed the Western world declining, witnessed Brexit and Trump becoming the president of the United States, lived through the years of terror attacks by ISIS, made new friends, lost friends, got my heart broken in a way I had no idea was possible, accepted that, no matter how much you love someone, sometimes the best option is just to let them go, faced my own weaknesses and limits, realized people around me's flaws and finally accepted that I needed help to overcome some of my issues, drank coffee, ate toasts, hopefully survived a global epidemic, had three different jobs, learnt a language, watched many, many, too many, tv shows.
 |
| Piazza del Popolo dalla Terrazza del Pincio |
I was thinking about this and many other things as I said goodbye to the old decade - I will spare you the summary of 2010-2015, otherwise this post will become an essay on a lot of wrong choices I made in my life - in the small Bavarian village of Regenstauf.
Life is, indeed, surprising.
As I welcomed the new year for the second time in three years with my friends Andrea and Jara, I bet none of us back in 2018 would have guessed where we would stand two years later, the empty space some people left next to us and the surprising, hopeful expectations each one of us had for the year to come.
 |
| San Giovanni |
I had no idea, then, that the one wish I whispered to the January sky of Bavaria would become true. What seemed impossible up to a year ago, got real in a matter of days. I managed to get into one of the biggest NGOs in the world, doing the closest thing to my dream job I can have access to right now. I got to move to one of the most amazing (yet complex) cities in the world, I can finally start to slowly support myself economically.
 |
| Il Colosseo in lontananza |
It is hard, sometimes - not only being alone in a city where I know very few people (even though I was lucky in finding nice friends the moment I walked into town), but it is also hard struggling with a job field that doesn't give me any kind of certainty for the future and, once again, I am aware that in six months I will have to look for an other job. Add a global epidemic to the mix, and the following restrictions on travelling back home to visit family and friends, and you will get the picture.
Despite all of this, though, whenever I walk in the historical city centre, passing the Colosseum or the Pantheon, walking along the Forum and sitting down in Piazza Navona, I remember I am lucky. I am lucky because I can turn my life around in three days without even thinking about it; I am lucky because I can chase jobs, flee a comfortable life to find an other one, I can move around my country (and even Europe, if I wanted to) as I like. It has not always been like it. It will not be forever. We take these things for granted, but 2020 already reminded us that it takes a couple of days for our lives to be turned upside down unexpectedly.
 |
| Sua maestà il Colosseo |
It is interesting to see how many things this new adventure shares with my Erasmus experience.
For example, I decided to move to both cities - Rome and Lisbon - while I was on a taxi ride. Before applying for the Erasmus scholarship, I was not sure whether I wanted to put Lisbon or Brighton on top of my list; but then at one point I was spending the weekend in Naples and I was stuck in the Saturday night traffic jam on a cab. I looked at the sparkly lights around me and heard the music of the night in the city, and it was suddenly clear: Lisbon needed to be my first choice - and so I did put it on top of my list, and the the rest is history. Similarly, I was once again on a taxi running through Rome when I decided I wanted to give moving here a try .
 |
| Nell'Esquilino |
Then, given the short time I had to plan my moving, I spent the first week here homeless. Luckily this time I could afford an Airbnb and didn't have to move from hostel to hostel making friends with weirdos; and despite everyone telling me how difficult it would be to get a room in Rome, I had many offers and even had difficulties choosing which room to take. Ah, the Vietnam-war-like flashbacks I had of visiting basements-turned-into-rooms or over expensive cupboards in Lisbon.
In the end, I chose my Roman home just like I did in Lisbon: I walked in, felt the coziness, fell in love with the light coming through the window and decided that
that would be the place I would happily spend hours watching movies and eating toasts. (My home here doesn't have a sandwich maker. I need to fix this asap, now that I think of it).
 |
| Edges |
As one does in these situations, I found myself discussing with many people about what it means leaving home (as the place where you grew up), under what conditions each one of us would do it and so on.
It is often said that there are two kinds of people in the world (for example, people who eat pizza, and people who eat undeserving, evil food like pizza with pineapple), but I believe it really comes down to two big groups of people: those whom, by birth, are constantly on the move, either in mindset or ready to move somewhere else, lured by anything that is different and unknown; and then there are people who find themselves at ease in the dimension of their own home, sometimes they like to go out and explore but they would never leave their nest permanently. People belonging to the two groups may get along, like each other, sometimes even fall in love, but deep down we don't understand people from the other group. At core, we have a different look on the world that runs deeper than culture, religion, ideologies etc. It doesn't matter though which group we are part of, in the end both roles are tragically alone in their constant action and non-action.
I often wondered which group I belong to. I am rootless, I see that now. I don't mind leaving a place to discover an other one. I decided to leave my hometown my family and my friends to chase my dreamjob in two days, and I understand to many this was unconceivable.
 |
| Il Colosseo col Palatino sullo sfondo |
So, if you are still with me, thank you for sticking with me to the end. What about you, are you a rootless person or you'd never leave home if it was for you?
Commenti
Posta un commento