Fear and fate

Written just before I left for Rome, publishing now one week in because life was too crazy in preparing for living abroad to get this published in time. The following are all my thoughts about designing your life and making sacrifices, which were swirling around my head in this time of transition. xx.

I’m going to Rome!

Lately I’ve had so many thoughts in my head I can barely keep them straight. I don’t know where this onslaught of ideas came from (maybe recent conversations I’ve had with friends, being inspired by my trip to New York, and my upcoming adventure). Regardless, I wanted to get them down before they escape me. So I hope you can indulge me in this everyday discoveries post and let me know if you’ve had similar thoughts lately, too. 

I’m getting ready to leave for three months in Rome, Italy, and I could not be more excited. But, all the small details I have to get in order are detracting from my planning for what I’ll do when I’m actually there. I will be an au pair, living with a lovely Roman family, and doing some writing and working on my blog. If I think about my life there, I get so excited I have to stop. Plus, there are things to be done and people to see before I fully commit myself to this foreign adventure. I was the same way before I left for Florence two years ago, but once I landed I was all-in.

You know the quote, I’ve been wanting to leave ever since I found out there was a place called elsewhere? That’s another thing I keep thinking about. I know not everyone is born with an escapist soul like me, so not everyone can relate. But for me the ability to escape into another culture for some time is the greatest pleasure. And it’s not even escaping, really. It’s living a different version of life. It’s not right or wrong, depending on where you are in the world and what the culture holds value to, it’s only a new experience different from previous ones that will allow me greater empathy and a bigger worldview for my future. 

I could never have gotten to this point if I didn’t believe in myself and didn’t fight for what I wanted, what I dreamed of. When Lady Gaga won the Oscar she talked about this. It’s not how many times you fall down (and believe me I have tripped again and again over the past few years), it’s how many times you stand up and keep going because you believe in your passion. It sounds so simple but it’s not. Silencing the critics around you or inside your head is no easy feat. It’s a battle that has to be fought every day, sometimes every hour or minute depending on how kind the little voice in your head is. My current motto is ‘fight for your life.’ It’s a new one but it’s what I’ve been doing all along. Maybe not well, maybe not even at 5% strength at times, but the determination was always there under whatever facade I had covered myself in that day. 

I don’t think I’ve fully realized the toll the past couple years have taken on me, physically and mentally. I have yet to figure it all out, and maybe never will, but I have learned how hard it is to process emotions before I can let them go. It’s f***ing hard sometimes, the inability to let feelings go. To stop feeling. All I wanted to do was move on, to forget, to gain a semblance of my old courage back after recent events I’m not going to discuss here. I think I’ve started to. I know it won’t be easy but I am my biggest fan and like I said, I am determined. So don’t give up, and don’t let something drag you under, because the sun will always rise.

On that note, my friends and I have been talking a lot recently about how things can change in an instant. No one’s ever stuck unless they leave themselves in a comfortable situation. I hope I’m never comfortable. I always want to be evolving, changing, learning, doing something new. I found the quote about the caterpillar that thought the world was over, and then it became a butterfly. It could happen to anyone. One day you think it’s never going to get better, life is always going to be a greyer version of the reality you once knew. But it’s not true. If you want to change, you can. If you want to move or quit your job or learn a new instrument or start running again, you can !! You have the power and life can be amazing if you follow your intuition and envision your wildest dreams becoming true. The butterfly is also important to me because when I visited Rome in January, I went to a speakeasy with walls covered in farfalle (butterflies). Ever since then, I see them as a sign letting me know I’m on the right path. 

Once I decided I wanted to move back to Italy, and then after that maybe on to New York, my whole perspective shifted. No longer was I stuck muddling through jobs trying to find satisfaction or rhythm, I was instead shifting in a major way that excited and frightened me at the same time. The future was wide open, and it was the best feeling ever. I could move to Italy. I could find an apartment in New York and a job. I could live at home for a little while to make it happen. I could get a job so that I could work toward doing these things. I would put in the time with these visions of my future pushing me through. 

Now I am about to leave for Italy, and I already am sad to leave in December! I know it’s going to be three months of love, learning, beauty, appreciating the everyday, slowing down, and focusing on myself and my artistry and my future. It’s going to be a time of growth in a city new and big and ancient and once the center of the world. I am turning any nerves into openness. Open to awkwardness, to language barriers, to customs I might have to re-learn, to welcoming people and cobblestone streets and fountains lit by moonlight. 

So how does one design a life that’s fitting for them, not the idea that everyone else imposes on them? It takes headstrong, it takes a willingness to disappoint people who may think they know best, its takes vulnerability to reveal what’s in your heart to the world. Remember the times when you feel most alive. Work every day to create moments like them, whether it’s through travel or art or human connection, if it matters to you then it’s worth pursuing. It has been far from easy to get where I am today, a series of decisions and actions with this end goal in mind, many tears shed and many dark days, but knowing that I prevailed makes all of the pain worth it now.

And if you feel like what you want is taking too long, I loved this quote Miley Cyrus recently shared on Insta: nature never hurries but it is always on time. Have faith and patience that it will work out, and it will. At the same time, never wish away your current life because the present is all we have. Appreciate everything, every sunset, every friend, every hug, every glass of wine, before it’s gone. Realize the sacrifices you will have to make, it adds value to what you’re doing. 

Sometimes you just have those rare moments where fate is looking you in the eyes, staring at you so intensely that you have no choice but to forego your fear and trepidation and respond. This was one of those moments. I’m the person who has cancelled interviews or put off coffee dates with professionals because anxiety and insecurities got in the way, and I thought it would just be better to avoid those things altogether. But then there are these times, where it feels so right you know that you have to go for it, and you use your fear as fuel to achieve your desires. It’s scary as hell, but when you feel it in your bones and know deep down that it’s right, somehow it makes everything easier.

Italy is calling me now…and I cannot wait to reach its shores again.

Checkout my Leave Yourself Behind series, part I and part II, for more on my decision to go back to Italy.