Italy as an Unplanned Detour
home as a feeling
All of my life, I’ve been drawn to physical spaces that provide me with a sense of comfort. There is a pace, a rhythm, a spiritual connection your body can feel in certain places in the world that stick with you forever. Whether it’s my thinking spot on the beach in San Diego that later became the site of my wedding, or the spot where the bay meets the point in Sea Isle City, NJ, as much as I come to know a place, it knows me back.
In December of 2022 we were living in San Diego, happy and content in our seaside cottage, when Italy came up out of the blue. I was shocked and elated. My partner had been applying to jobs in Italy through his work for years and never got any traction. Suddenly, two jobs in different locations in Italy were courting him. When he told me he got the job, I didn’t have to “decide” anything - I just knew we were going. I didn’t know how we would make it happen, or when, but I knew we were going to figure it out.
Within four months of accepting the job, we had made the photocopies, signed the contracts, booked the hundreds of calls and appointments, said goodbye to our beautiful home, and walked onto a plane full of optimism. We were blissfully unaware of what was in front of us, including the harrowing three-day-long, one-way trip to Napoli, a city I had never been to before. Looking back on it, almost one year ago, it was one of life’s “unplanned detours” that ended up being rockier than I thought it would be.
I went into the year full of hope, optimism, and confidence. My life is aligned! I’m starting my own side hustle! I married a wonderful partner! We are moving to Italy! I have to go back and hug this woman, who was fully living in what felt right to her. I have to tell her, “I love how much you are really going for it”. Confident that she would figure it out, no matter how much paperwork or how many sections of Duolingo she would have to get through, she was going to make it happen.
Was I too optimistic? Or was I simply naive? My overall excitement for living in Europe again, one of my bucket list items that was certainly aligned with what I wanted, blurred the fact that it might be difficult to uproot my life AGAIN. It was good that I clung onto this optimism because the stress of packing up all of my items, after having already moved my entire life across the country just 2.5 years prior, felt very overwhelming.
Not to mention, I was very happy in San Diego. I had a beautiful community of friends, lots of hobbies, long walks by the ocean after work, sunsets, weekend trips in my van, fresh air, parrots, a vegetable CSA delivery, and a weekly farmer’s market trip. I was so comfortable there that when I was thrown into the Neapolitan summer, with sweltering heat and the screaming Italians, I went into a complete state of overwhelm.
In this article by Clover Stroud, she very eloquently describes the daily small frustrations of being an outsider as a British expat in the States. She writes, “I felt so tired, and so incompetent, having gone from someone who really had my shit together, to being someone who suddenly struggled to make a phone call, or make the petrol pump work”. I wrote to Clover in Substack’s notes, and she said something that resonated with me on the sensation of being an expat: “I know I am lucky to be moving from one place of privilege to another - very lucky indeed. And yet, it has still been hard, upsetting, even deranging at times! Much more than I could have imagined it would be.”
Deranging. You would have to be a bit deranged to navigate moving abroad. Something is maddening about missing a signature on our paperwork and having to return for another three-hour commute at 5:40 AM. Or when you’re so hungry but it isn’t the required dinner hour yet, so you cave and get a fried chicken roll-up at the self-serve McDonald’s kiosk. The lunacy of learning to wait in line, when the sign-in sheet and ticketing system are not observed, and locals are elbowing you out of your spot. The absurdity of begging the dry cleaning lady to give you your sweaters even when you forgot your ticket. The foolishness of sifting through endless stacks of paperwork, which will never be entered into any computer system.
I didn’t realize I would be grieving what I lost: the security, comfort, and stability of home. I have been trying to talk to that woman whose confidence has been shaken. I’ve been trying to tell her to stop waiting around for the perfect conditions to become that person again. I don’t have to wait for a made-up date on the calendar that I can circle and say I “will finally feel comfortable living in Italy”. There isn’t anything waiting for me at that place. I can create comfort and security for myself today. This “journey” has been one step forward and two steps backward, wobbling along like a toddler. As Clover Stroud writes, “you have to evolve, rather than strain for the past, as that’s a place you’ll never get back to, however much you want it”.
Part of surrendering to having a one-way ticket is finding new routines and strategies for coping. Whether it’s picking up sweet red tomatoes on the roadside after a hike in Amalfi, or stopping at the sinkhole to observe the slow repairs with the nonni, or embracing a gelato on your evening passeggiata, I don’t always feel at home, but I feel gratitude for the ability to try on this lifestyle. I have etched myself into the eccentricities of this city, and it has, in turn, impressed its mark on me.
This is a re-post of an earlier essay with some editorial updates. What about you? Have you ever booked a “one-way ticket” somewhere, literally or metaphorically? What have you learned on your unplanned journeys? How do you combat feelings of homesickness?
Oh Brenna, so very very true. All of it. It's such an adjustment and unnerving at first, or sometimes a bit longer than just right away. In fact, my post tomorrow is how we were --quite literally--deported (!) after applying our second year for FM3's, green cards, in Mexico, thanks to our accountant's incompetency. Just when you think you kinda have it together -- but it is always a juggling act. It makes me 1000 percent more humble. You are so right how lucky it is to be relocating to Another space of comfort/safety. The process for thousands of people throughout the world who are in transit now--not Knowing where and when and IF it will end. Immigrating to a foreign country is an upset, but without knowing the end result while in transit, so very disconcerting it would be. A prayer for all those in transit.
Thanks for the story Brenna!
Yes, I have booked three one-way tickets: to San Francisco California; to Bergen, Norway; and then back to San Francisco.
The first was to go to graduate school, a dream of many years; the second to be with someone I loved; the third to come back to the dream place of my youth after my romantic relationship broke up.
The first uprooting was easy: two suitcases. The second harder, with an additional twenty boxes filled with books, school notebooks, music CDs, and new clothes I had acquired. The third about as difficult as the second since there were even more clothes, heavy ones for the harsh Winters.
Emotionally, the first one was quite easy except for the part of leaving my parents and siblings behind; the second harder leaving my new friends and being an ocean away from my family; the third comparatively easier as I was coming back to my friends and being again closer to my family.
Adapting to living in Norway was not too hard except for the lack of friends, my own mistake. Everyone between 5 and 50 years old spoke English, the food was healthy with fish dominating the menus, and with an unparalleled natural beauty that I still dream about sometimes.
Now, settled in California for more than 30 years with my own core family, feels comfortable, and yet my wife and I look forward to uprooting ourselves again for our retirement in a handful of years.
Life has been good, the one way tickets have been purchased willingly, and I look forward what is happening next.