Coming home

Coming home can mean many things. Writing this post is a great opportunity to reflect on that. I haven't done it for a long time and partly it's because I'm going through a transition period, in which defining my feelings or emotions is not easy even for me. But after this last week spent with my family, I feel compelled to do so, not only to tell the facts, but above all to clariy my own mind.

Home is the town where I was born, Bussolengo, or to extend the borders the city of Verona and all its wonderful province, where my family and best friends of a lifetime are currently living. Every time I return home to Italy, it is an adventure.

This time I returned to be able to attend my brother Giovanni's wedding party and above all to meet my new sister-in-law for the first time. Her name is Thaylanne, and she is a Brazilian girl. She and my brother met online during the pandemic, and theirs is a beautiful modern romance. She arrived in Italy about a month ago with her sweet 5-year-old daughter, Agnes, who is also my new granddaughter. It may seem like an unusual situation to many, but there is nothing so strange about it. They are two people who have made a choice of mutual commitment and whom I admire very much. She also has a great energy; we found that we have a lot in common and that we are both a little crazy, which can only be a good thing.

Thaylanne and Giovanni on their wedding day at the Rome Temple

Home is also spending some time with our loved ones and I feel like this every time I have the opportunity to hug my grandchildren again. At first I met Benjamin, Eva and the hurricane Beatrice again and gave milion kisses to the little Enoc, born at the end of August. Each time my heart fills with tenderness and joy in being with all of them, listening to their adventures and seeing their small and big progress. These trips give me the opportunity to dedicate some time by concentrating all my attention on them. For this reason, before returning to Spain, I also spent a night in Padua at my brother Raffaele's house to be able to stay with Teodora, Dario, Gabriella and Michele.

Benjamin, Eva and Agnes eating aunties's cupcake

Teodora and Michele helping the aunt making gingerbread cookies

I always knew that the bond with my grandchildren, who now also include little Agnes, is and will always be special. They are the ones that I miss the most when I am far away and knowing that they remember me as I always remember them, makes me extremely happy and proud.

But this distance, which for many reasons came between me and the rest of my family, was necessary. Today, after almost two years, I am also starting to realize the reasons better.

A few weeks ago thinking about this trip worried me. The fact of living in another country today and having a separate life from the rest of my family sometimes makes me feel the different one, the stranger, and I admit I also had fears about how I would have felt in being the only "unaccompanied" one and other similar thoughts. But the truth is that when we arrived in Italy everything went much better than I imagined. I felt at home, absolutely normal, as if things had never changed.

I had to do many things and all in a hurry. I was able to see just a few friends due to the very limited time, but as always it made me very happy. And every time I talked to someone who asked me how my new life in Spain is going, I answered enthusiastically. It was in this way that I realized how much, although things are far from perfect, I feel happy and satisfied with my situation. I've found something I like, I'm making friends, I'm working on projects that I'm sure have great potential for the future, I live in a dream place, what more could I want?

I understood that this distance is making me slowly discover who I really am. I realized that every time I return to Almeria I return home. And I'm not just referring to the city and to my life, but I'm talking about myself.

The society we live in today puts a lot of pressure on us and I continually ask myself what I really want to do. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish our real desires from the expectations that others have for us. I have lived for years in a apparently ideal situation and to understand that I was not happy took me a very long time and different types of experiences, not all positive. Even today there are things I do or don't do, not out of my will but because of convenience or fear. The difference is that I am more aware now when I find myself in one of these situations and when this happens I know I need to change.

At a certain point of the trip to the Rome Temple, while I was in the car with my parents, my dad asked me once again to explain him the reason for my decision to move. As I have already written here it is also difficult for me to give an answer that seems logical but at that moment it came spontaneously to me to do it with a single word, I told him: freedom. And I don't mean the freedom to disobey or to do whatever I want. I mean the freedom of mind and spirit to be able to make real decisions that make me staying true to myself and that are "free" from expectations, pressures, conventions...

I understood that today I am at home because I am free to be myself. Not because anyone ever prevented me from doing it, but because I did it myself. Here, on the other hand, I can really know myself and fight all those inner battles that I have to win in order to become the person I can be and develop my full potential.

The building where I live seen from the Parque de la Estacion in Almeria

The road is still long. I have many dreams that I would like to realize in the near future and I will never be able to do so if I do not have the courage to make choices that sometimes are difficult. Today I am here and I am my best company. At the same time however, I am heartened by the love of my family and of all those friends I have temporarily left but who are always with me. I never feel alone and it's the truth. And I am grateful to be able to live in this moment a life that I have chosen with awareness and which I hope will continue to give me satisfaction.

Today I'm here, but who knows about tomorrow. And it doesn't matter in the end because my home, is me.