Hearts Will Never be Practical

It’s January 31^st.

It’s the last day of Italy. It’s the last day of my journey. It’s the last day of my attempt to build a life on another continent, to learn another language, to make a new world for myself. It’s the last day for me to walk casually past the gigantic monuments, the overwhelming Vatican, the Cloverfield Monster also known as the Pantheon, and the giant symbolic masterpiece of the Colosseum. It’s the last day for me to eat non-processed cheese, indulge into gelato and chocolate, and drink a real cappuccino. It’s the last day for me to LIVE in Italy. Tomorrow I board a flight back to America. Back to American sized coffee, convenience corner CVS, and where people follow traffic signals.

It’s time to pack my bags. It’s time to choose the things I need and the things that can be left in Italy. Hairdryer with European plug? Leave it. Videocamera? Bring it home. Towel? Leave it. Excess shampoo and conditioner? Leave it. New leather boots? Bring them. Heart?

Damn.

What do I do with my heart?

I need my heart to thrive in order to show all the kindness and caring that I have within me. But I fear that I will truly leave my heart here—in this place where I have found love in the cracks of the cobblestone and in the bubbles of my cappuccino. In this place where I have found love in the train rides to distant cities, the simplicity of walking around each one of those cities, and the nooks and crannies that I have found in each of those cities. In this place where I have found love, have given love, and have received love. In this place that I truly did leave my heart two years ago. In this place that I have fallen in love with all over again.

It would be much easier if your heart was something that you took, rolled in the sleeves of your favorite sweater, and placed perfectly in the center of your luggage so as not to damage it during the turbulence of the ten hour plane ride home. It would be so much easier if your heart were just something you needed to pack and bring with you wherever you went—like your toothbrush, your soap, your shampoo, your underwear. But your heart is much different than all these things. Your heart isn’t practical. It’s both breakable—and—irreplaceable.

Footprints? Leave them. Memories? Take them. Heart.

Damn

What do I do with my heart?

I wish I could string half my heart to a necklace and put it around Italy’s neck, while I wear the other half around mine. Then one day I could return, and reconnect the pieces. But the problem with that is, of course, that until I returned I’d be broken hearted—and I am not looking to live that way—nor am I looking to live heartless.

So this time I am not going home empty-hearted. I’m not going home with a longing for a place that I’ve already seen, lived, and breathed. I am not going home with tears in my eyes, and endless wishes.

This time I am going home with an even bigger heart full of love for adventure, for spontaneity, for the chance to return. This time I am going home with a big heart filled with a big sort of love for Italy, one I knew of before, but confused with longing and lust. This time I am going home knowing I went back…knowing I found the other half of my heart beneath the cobble stone, the bubbles of cappuccino, and the ruins of the biggest monuments. This time I am going home knowing I haven’t left a piece of it behind. This time I am going home with Rome in my heart…not leaving my heart with Rome…this time I have my heart in my hands and a lot of love between my fingers. This time I’m taking my heart with me.

Time for Some New Shoes

“Don’t look fate can only find you

You can’t choose for something to surprise you

Set sail without a destination

Just see where the wind will take you”

--Lee DeWyze

No one said that the amount of time you spend in a place is what truly makes it worth your while. No one said that you had to live somewhere for three months, six months, or a year to really understand it, to really grasp it, to really endure it. All you really need is a mind and a heart for adventure. In the last week, after being met with several obstacles, I have made a decision on the next month of my Italian excursion…

….Drum roll….

…I have made a decision on what will be my FINAL month of my Italian excursion…

Yep that’s right—it’s time for a new pair of shoes—or in other words—another change. Instead of returning home in April, like my flight home was booked for, I will be returning home the first week of February, but not before going north, east, and south in Italy, not before getting a taste of every cappuccino on the compass, not before seeing Italy.

A year ago, I had saved up a piggy bank of money to return to Europe over the summer for a backpack trip that clearly never happened. Part of the reason it never happened was because I had never made the leap—taken the chance—and booked the flight. I was scared. Then, when I finally went to book the flight, a volcano erupted, (literally in Iceland), and my plans shifted again. I never jumped.

Then I did. And now here I am struggling to find a job in Italy, but is that what I ever truly wanted to do anyway?

No.

I wanted to explore. I wanted to find new alleyways. I wanted to find cobblestone I had never walked on before. I wanted to go on an adventure.

Did I want to spend time working and worrying about money?

No.

Did I think I’d cut my trip short.

Absolutely not.

Was I worrying about all the wrong things when I was debating cutting the trip short by three months?!

Absolutely.

I was worried about what other people would think of my decision to come home. Like I was giving up or that I was running away. Like I had failed. It took a certain someone reminding me that people at home wouldn’t be disappointed in me—that I wouldn’t be failing—that I would be returning to people who loved and cared about me…that they wouldn’t suddenly hate me for making a choice to come home to them. And now I know where I want to be, and what I want to do and I think it took coming back here to realize it. I do want to continue traveling, and I want to continue writing, and I want to continue producing, and I want to get started on my company…my production company…My dream.

And under the circumstances that finances will eventually run short, that I will soon be an illegal “alien” (or a new-wave Italian) here in Italy, and that I will not have had the opportunity to see outside of the box I have squeezed myself into, I think it only seems right. They say that distance is what you make it. I think that goes for time too. You can live in a place for your whole life and never SEE it. There are people here who have been here their whole lives and who have never seen the Colosseum. There are people in New York City, who have lived there their whole life and have never made it north of 125^th street because “It’s scary.” This is not the route I want to take. I don’t want to be scared. This is not the way I ever want to spend my life…I want to see everything. I want to take the route where I buy a train ticket and spend one month of my life seeing everything I never knew.

A friend asked me where I was looking to live in Rome, a few weeks ago, and I told her “Prati.”

“Didn’t you live there already?”

“Yah, but I loved it.”

“But you need to look at new places…you need to SEE new things.”

“Naw…I love Prati…”

And I love Rome—but my friend is right. Prati is not the place for me to return to, and I am starting to think settling down here isn’t for me either. I really am meant to run all the miles in my shoes at marathon runner pace—I really am meant to move around a bit. As much as change scares me—it’s the only thing I truly know.

Like I mentioned, I was worried that if I came home sooner than planned—that I had failed. But that’s not true. If I come home sooner than planned, and before then, I find a new world of exploration—a new world of cobblestone—a new world of cappuccino--a new world—then I will probably have exceeded my expectation of this trip—and I will probably be more content with the outcome. I will be happy to board a plane home with memories of fulfilling one of my main goals in coming back here: Discovery.

And discovery can take on so many meanings. It can be in the way that you travel to new places. Or it can be in the way that you discover new things about yourself. I like to think I got a taste of both—I am going home seeing my cappuccino cup (well over 150 cappuccino cups) as half full, not half empty.

Watch out New York City…I am coming home.

Outsourced

Outsourced

With the economic crisis, it is very rare to walk through Manhattan, tell people that your degree is in communication with a focus on journalism, and then be told that you have chosen the perfect career path and that many jobs are opening up. The awful truth is that journalism is on its death bed, undergoing an agonizing execution in which it is kept breathing only because companies are willing to hire on the cheap. This either means that companies are hiring very few people to do many, many tasks at decent proficiency, rather than many talented crew members who can bring a wealth of knowledge in a variety of areas—or that companies are outsourcing.

According to USA Today, in 2008, MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton suggested that “papers should explore outsourcing in nearly every aspect of their operations.”

Well if news outlets are going to be outsourcing… then I have made an executive decision for myself…I am going to outsource myself. So with that, I bid adieu to New York City, to the United States, and I embark, in two months, on a trip to Italy in which I hope to first excel in a four week course that will grant me the certificate which makes me completely marketable as a teacher in Italy and to second: find a placement in Rome, the city that I considered to be my home for three months in 2008.

Things aren’t going to be easy. In fact, finding a placement may be very difficult seeing as the EU rules are very strict about who can and cannot work in Italy. However, life is not easy now: for instance, my apartment isn’t perfect—and I am not sure it will ever be a perfect apartment…I sleep on the floor, a dog sleeps in the kitchen next to me which makes my fan blow lovely dog scents my way each night, and the living space outside my room is small. In addition, I currently am unemployed—call it a casualty of the economy and recession, or just call it plain crappy. So leaving uneasy—to go to well…possibly more uneasy isn’t really scaring me away just yet. I am reminded by my peers and people I look up to that I am young and that this is the time to take chances and see the world, even if it doesn’t work out the way I planned. A good friend even noted not to worry that “America will always take me back.”

But with outsourcing my services and self to another country, I hope that I am able to make future contacts and employment opportunities past my hopeful year of employment as an English teacher. Seeing as I did not go to school to teach and how I am the oddball female of the family (My mother and sister are both English teachers…sheesh), it is my full determination to find a job internationally related to communications and media. So while America may always take me back—I am not sure coming back is what I hope to do.

The results of all this is that I may not live on more than a low income for many years of my life and I may not live in a big old mansion overlooking Lake Eerie or Lake Michigan, but I will be dedicating my life to living out what I want to do…in the places I want to do it. It’s time to make mistakes, and be happy with those mistakes…and with that I say: Bon Voyage.