Two months and 23 days

I am here. It is today two months and 23 days since I moved here and it is nothing like what I could have expected.

I feared living here, but I thought that it would be great work-wise. I don't know how many times I already thought of quitting and go back to I don't even know to what, since there is nothing I could go back to.
I am sleepless. I work non-stop for zero reward. I have never met students on average so uninterested and so ignorant. But it is the lack of interest that strikes me more and upsets me and makes me feel frustrated. I spend sleepless nights preparing the classes, not being able to do anything else in my life beside working to prepare the classes and for what?
I have to do it, I am paid for it, but it is so frustrating.
And I have none to talk to here. No friends, no acquaintances with whom sometimes to take a break from all this craziness and do and talk about something else. I have been working hard in my life before. I had a crazy PhD time. But I had the olandesino and I had friends that made life worth, that gave me a reason, something to look forward.
Since two months and 23 days I am on a survival mode. Counting the days until the end of this semester, hoping that during the summer I will be able to recharge and not think about my non-life here, hoping that I will be able to spend time with my friends and family. I feel so disconnected and lonely here and I keep asking myself what really is the point of doing all this.
I moved here to be closer to my husband. But we still don't live in the same place, who knows when and how we will, since any attempt to find a job for him here has been unsuccessful so far, and when we see each other, which fortunately happens more frequently than before, I am always so down, so nervous, so busy preparing the classes and working, that I am not even able to fully enjoy the time together.

I miss my previous life, when I had a life.

I felt lonely in Portugal, but nothing compared to how I feel here. I didn't have close friends there, but I had people to do things with. I had people whom I could call if I wanted to. I had the ocean and plenty of time just for myself. And money to save.

Life is too short to be wasted and I really cannot see a point in wasting mine working so hard to receive zero appreciation and feel constantly stressed, unhappy, and nervous. I had to finish this semester and then start to seriously think about maybe moving again if things will not change within the next months. What is the point of being here if I have to be so lonely and work all the time to not have a life and have such a low salary that I constantly worry about how I would get to the end of the month if my husband wouldn't help me with the expenses.

It is not the place, it is not the people. It is all together. On average very bad students, too much work, extreme loneliness, not having time for myself, feeling isolate, feeling far from family and friends and not having enough time to dedicate to them even if it was just to talk to them on the phone.

I have something like two more months to go and I can't wait to get to the end of this semester and hopefully get a life worth living back.
There are really too many beautiful things in this work to spend all my time working....and working for what?

Forget or forgive

...or maybe I should title this post "sometimes they come back".....

I get hurt very easily by people I care about. I have a lot of problems to trust someone, but when I do and when I let this person become part of my life...well, I would like this person to stay there as a part of my life forever.

Things do not always work the way we wish they would. Sometimes people don't mean bad and they don't want to hurt anyone, but the end result may be different than what planned....So, sometimes it happened that either because I hurt someone or either because someone hurt me, people to whom I was very closed to and in one case I even deeply loved (and will always love in some ways) are not part of my life anymore.

Today I got an unexpected call on skype.

Completely unexpected.

I was busy, so I couldn't answer to it. But it was actually a good thing that I was busy because I wouldn't have known if I wanted to answer to it. The person who called me today is someone whom I considered a friend, to whom I grew attached to, someone I miss sharing things with, someone who also really hurt me very recently.

The thing is that even if I believe that this person didn't purposely want to hurt me, he showed me that I cannot trust him and that he did not care very much about me or our friendship, which to me instead meant something. I don't know if given a chance, he would behave in a different way this time. How can I know that this time he wouldn't hurt me again and keep me around as a friend according to his needs to throw me away when he didn't need me anymore?

I forgive very easily.

Or I should say. I used to forgive very very easily.

Lately instead, I decided that sometimes it is better to keep people at a distance, if they may hurt me.

Friends are precious to me.

But true friends are rare to find. I wouldn't want to lose the chance to have a true friend in my life. But how many times does it happen that people learn from their mistakes and actually would behave in a different way compared to the past given a chance?

So here the question that it is persecuting me over and over for many different reasons and situations, beside this specific one.


Is it better to live a calm, steady, simple life (well, in my case the terms "steady" and "simple" are already much more adventurous than what it is considered "steady" and "simple" by many people) or take some risks and see what happen but at least try to live as fully as possible?


Years ago, I wouldn't have had any doubt and I would have gone for the second option....right now, at least many times, having something steady, simple and well known is also incredibly appealing and desirable.....

the nightmare of wanting/needing to make new friends

I just came back from France a few days ago. I have some very good friends there. I enjoyed being there and being myself around my friends so much, that I feel even more then desire and need to make new friends here where I live now. I understand that meeting the right people with whom to build a good friendship is not automatic. I am aware of the fact that it took me quite some time to feel comfortable and be myself with my friends in Montpellier...I was actually quite worried about bothering them since I stayed at their place for many days....so, I have been moving around from one place to another since longtime to know that meeting the right people with whom to feel a ease and become friends is not something that comes in a day.

I know this. I know it, I know it, I know it.

But still, knowing this doesn't necessarily make my life easier here. I miss the kind of relationship I built over the years with my close friends, in Italy or somewhere else and I miss having something similar in the place where I am now. Instead, I keep walking on eggs all the time. I feel like under exam, because when I meet someone I like and I like to spend time with, I strongly wish that this person would feel the same way about me, so that hopefully we could become something more than colleagues or acquaintances....unfortunately, it is not just because I like someone that this person will certainly like me back and will want to spend time and do things with me. On top of this. Portugal is another culture. Different from France, different from Germany, from Italy, from the USA. Something different again. And so, I have to start over. I find Portuguese people very polite, but at the same time also very direct to the limit that they may seem hurtful sometimes in the way they say things. As always, I assume that people are good and nice, so I try to not take things said in a direct and sharp way as hurtful, but still...it requires a lot of understanding, as I am not used to this. Plus, not all the people I interact with here are Portuguese....so, I feel that I have to use one measure with one person and another with another person coming from another country....it is so tiring....a lot of work!

Just an example. Meeting point to have a picnic on the beach with two girls: 8pm at the supermarket to buy something before going to the beach.

I am generally late, but since I am new here I try as much as I can to be respectful and show up on time. So, I did everything in a rush to be at the meeting place at 8pm. I did. I was alone. I waited until 8.15pm, then, not sure if I misunderstood something, I called one of these girl. She told me that she was leaving home right then and that she would be at the supermarket in less than 5min, since she lives next to it. End of the story is that this girl arrived at 8.30pm, because when she told me that she was leaving home, she actually just woke up from a nap (why not just say so???) and the other girl arrived at 8.20pm.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with these two girls plus a couple to do something together. The meeting was at 5pm. We were at a festival and it was very crowded. My mom (who is visiting me) and I were there at 5pm. At 5.10pm I sent a sms to these people saying where we were standing, thinking that maybe due to the crowd we were all there and not seeing each other. The couple called me saying that they couldn't find a parking spot and they were late. For the other two girls, they didn't reply to the sms, so I called them and they were late. We met half an hour after the planned time.

Since I am someone who is almost never on time and since I know this and I find this behavior quite disrespectful, when I realize that I am being late, I always always call or send a sms to say that I am late, how late I am and apologizing. I find extremely annoying this attitude of being late without even acknowledging the fact that someone was standing in a place doing nothing else than waiting. Of course, none of these people do it in a bad way or because they don't care about me, but it is still very annoying. The thing is that because I like all these people with whom I met yesterday, I have to force myself to be extremely tolerant, hoping that with time we will become friends enough to find a common ground that will make everyone happy. It is really not easy.

It is so much work to always try to understand how other people work and decipher their behavior....some years ago, when I was at the beginning of all this moving, I found discovering places and people very interesting and challenging and I highly enjoyed it. Now, I mostly find this same thing extremely frustrating and destabilizing....sometimes I wish people would come with a manual......at least sometimes....

sitting at a French cafe'

I had an amazing time in Montpellier. I just got back to Portugal today.

I was so afraid about going back to where I have been living for so long and finding things changed, relationships that were not so strong anymore. Instead, everything was even better than what I could have hoped for. I spent a lot of time with my friend and it was quality and fun time.

There is no comparison. I regularly talk and exchange emails with my friends who don't live where I currently live, but in these occasions it is more about sending and receiving updates. Having the chance to actually live things with my friends, normally, talking about whatever we feel like, it is all another story. I enjoyed it so much.

And the best thing of all, the thing I realized that I am missing a lot about France and especially Montpellier, is the chance to sit outside in the sun at a cafe' with my friends. I had quite a lot of that in these days and I enjoyed any minute of it and I wished I could transfer the whole atmosphere (including my friends, of course :-)) here in Portugal. I don't think that there is such a thing like the French cafes anywhere else in the world...at least not in the parts of the world where I have been living so far. In the spring, in the summer, it is just a perfect set up for spending a nice moment chatting with friends.

I am missing that already!
 

Happy and scared

I am not sure what really happened, but for the first time in a long time, I am really, truly, deeply happy. I feel the kind of happiness that makes me walking around with a smile.

I am back to Montpellier for a short work stay and I am spending a lot of time with close friends, who keep showing me how happy they are to have me here. The same for the people I used to work with. It is a nice feeling. Plus, I found the strength of stopping a very unhealthy and painful interaction and even if this decision still makes me sad for a lot of reasons when I think about it, overall, it makes me also feel lighter and happier for having taken a step toward my own happiness, instead of always putting someone else in front of me. Last thing, I think that finally, after long long long time, I feel able to love again. I just can't stop smiling.

Unfortunately, I am also quite scared....It has been so long since the last time that I felt this way for more than just a short moment or one day, that I am afraid that this feeling will end soon......

good timing

Just as yesterday I wrote a post about the need I have for finding the right people (especially girl) with whom building some close friendship here, today I read an article on the NYT about sisterhood.

Girl friendship is very important and not only to me. I miss my close girlfriends who live basically all across the world. I hope that I will find someone to feel connected too also here. It is very important to feel mentally balanced and to not make a drama of every little daily difficulty.


I just read a quote from the movie Detachment that I consider very truthful and beautiful in a sad way.

running running biking biking

I am doing a lot of sport. Push ups, biking, walking long distances, push ups again, abs.......

and this is not because the summer season is getting closer.

I just need to get rid of my anger, frustrations, sadness, whatever negative feeling I have at the moment. Why? because here is beautiful. I love my apartment (still with problems of finding water on the kitchen floor...maybe one day they will manage to fix that). I love the ocean. I love walking along the ocean, on the sand or just staring at it. There are many many loving things. But I don't get the mentality. Every single day it takes me an incredible amount of energy (which I honestly feel wasted) just to manage to get things going. Anything I may need from someone else takes ages, with many meetings, many opinions exchanged, many meetings again to get nowhere and start again......some days I really feel it is the never ending story and it will go on like that forever.

How can people work here without feeling frustrated all the time is something that I still don't know. Maybe you have to be born with the right DNA to be able to deal with this system of doing (or better doing only after long long time) things.

As if this would not be already hard enough, I feel very lonely. I do like spending a lot of time alone. The week ends for example are just for me. I like to have them for me. But this doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to have friends to do things with when I would like to and especially to have people to whom I feel connected too.

My ex-boyfriend lives very close to me. He totally ignores me. He doesn't even try to keep it polite. He acts as if I would be invisible. Saying that this hurts me incredibly, especially considering how much I like and admire him still (as a person, not for his behavior toward me), is a very little expression of how I feel about it.

Then the working environment, the one in which I work most, is composed by a small group of people with some leaders. And I don't mean leaders in terms of bosses. I mean leaders in terms of some dominating characters. I unfortunately seem to have stepped on the wrong feet, as clearly one of these leaders, who is a girl, doesn't like me at all. I have no idea of what I did to her or what provoked her behavior, but it is like that. And when it comes to her to decide or to organize something, of course I am not going to be invited. Considering that unfortunately I still know a very limited group of people here and that most of these people belong to just one group to which this person belongs too.....well, it is not a nice feeling at all.

It is a new experience for me. I mean of course there have been people who didn't like me also in other places, but her aversion toward me is out there, very open, very hostile. Not when it happens that we are already all together in a group. In these occasions, she is instead extremely nice and acts totally normal. She just makes sharp comments or keeps me out of things when she has the occasion.

It wouldn't be a big deal at all if I would know other people, some right people, with whom I could talk to openly. Some close friends to talk openly. Instead everyone here is best friend of someone else and so I find myself all the time walking on eggs to avoid hurting someone's else sensitivity, to not say the wrong thing because since everyone talks a lot about other people business, I am always afraid that anything I say can be misunderstood and twisted.

I am a very sarcastic person. I don't think that Portuguese people in general are big fans of sarcasm. I am not sure that it is part of their culture. So, often, they just don't get me. This is definitively not the first time in which I move to a country and sense of humor is so different that I have to measure what I say and how I say it (which is a very difficult task for me).

I am a very enthusiast person. Translation: I am arrogant.

and so on and so on....Some days it can be so frustrating that I feel like just being by myself, not even going to work, because I feel lonelier there than at home alone. I hate this feeling. And it keeps happening, because I move all the time and I keep getting to places where there are already hierarchies, networks, groups, etc. And I am the outsider.

On top of this here I am a disturbing outsider. Because all the girls here have a boyfriend and I don't. Because a lot of them also have kids and I don't. Because despite all this, I am even older than them. I just often feel that I don't fit and I don't have so much in common with them.

Today is my feeling negative day. It is normal to meet people who don't like me. I just need to balance that with people who really like me and with whom I can just be myself!

I don't want to let you go

My closest friend just sent me a nice email with written: "I understand how you feel, but I just want to see you happy".
It was nice. It is nice to know that someone wishes my happiness and look out for me, to try to protect me from suffering and being hurt. But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes the same people who want our best are the ones who hurt us. I did the same too to people I deeply loved. Sometimes we don't realize how our actions can hurt another person. We don't mean bad, but the result can be very damaging for the other.

Anyway. My life in Portugal is not settled and I keep having huge mood shifts depending on the days, depending on work, depending on my interaction with the others, etc. I am constantly frustrated here because there is no way to get to the end of anything or have an answer to anything in a reasonable time. I am spending my time doing actually nothing for my own work, but just talking to this person and that person and this other person to try to figure out if we need to buy some materials, if we already have it and where it is, etc. It is a continuous loop in which people just talk, talk, talk.

I am definitively more a person of actions instead of just talk, talk, talk.

And I am Mediterranean, but I don't share the tipical Mediterranean mentality of "don't do today what you can do tomorrow". My motto is more "do what you have to do as soon as possible at least that thing is done and you can move on".

From here my deep frustration of living in this country so far. To get anything done, I need to ask the same thing over, and over, and over. I am already sick of it.

On top of this, there is my personal life, which is not at the top either. I always have huge problems in letting people leaving my life. When someone matters to me, either a friend, a colleague, or a past important boyfriend, I like to keep these people in my life, because they are the people who make a difference to me. My friends are few, but they are the same since longtime and when I meet new people, I keep only close friends when I move from one place to another. And I try my best to keep them as a part of my life, no matter how much time and energy I need to invest on it. They are the ones who make my life meaningful and much better.

Love and friendship mean a lot to me and to my mental health. I can't do without those.

The thing is that I don't get close to too many people. I am very protective of myself, because I know how vulnerable, sensitive, and how easily I can be hurt by people who get close to me and became important in my life. But the ones who make the cut, I wish they would stay there, in my life, forever.

I know that this doesn't work well with past boyfriend, especially if the relationship has been very intense and meant something to both. I know that this is also not easy when people live in different countries. Also because I am not able to go from a close relationship to someone to something very superficial. I have never been able to deal with people close to me who faded away in some way from my life. I always, always suffered very much because of that.

And it keeps happening. I never accept this as a fact of life. I am not the kind of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I am happy to be left with the memories of the good time we have". I am more the type of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I don't want this to be over".

But of course, this does not depend only on me...so what is the solution since I am clearly not able to let people go out of my life if they had/have an important role in it? I don't think that at this age I will ever learn how to deal with it. Should I close myself off even more to get close to people until I am 100% sure that they will play a role in my life and stay there? how can I know that in advance?

How can you avoid to get hurt since you cannot predict the future?

my stuff is moved

Vila do Conde...day four of this road-moving-trip.

I feel very uncomfortable in being in a country where I want to interact with people, I understand the language and I can't speak it. It doesn't happen too often, but when it does, I hate it. I got a book on quick sentences to learn in Portuguese to get around. It is a start. Then as soon as I will move here, learning the language will be one of the first things I will do.

Last night I had a bad crisis. And today too. I cried for some time without stop. I am not ready to move and mentally I guess I realized only now that I am seriously going to move my life to another country again. Yes, I have friends here, even a very good close friend here. Yes, there is the sea and hopefully I will find an apartment just a few streets away from it. Yes, the working environment is very stimulating. Yes, people of Portugal are generally very nice....yes, there are a lot of positive things and I can see all that. I also feel lucky in having got the grant to work here, possibly for long time, on my own project, when the economy is going worldwide so bad. I can see all the good things of this. It is not that I am ungrateful. But still. I am not ready to move. I am not ready to leave my old life behind. I am even less ready to leave the people I got attached to in these years. I know, there is skype and sms and emails. But it is not the same. Nothing can replace the real time spent together with someone I love or I am close to. Nothing can replace a real hug. In my life I found a few very good huggers. People who are able to hug me and make me feel part of something, not alone, as if I just got home. I have met one of these good huggers in Montpellier and I am sure I will miss hiding in his arms when I need. And then there are the people I shared these past three years with. They have been with me trough the break ups and the ups and downs of my life in these years and the surgery I had and the bad and good news at work. They have been with me, especially one girl. A few days ago I was very down and I spent an entire afternoon with her. We talked and then she showed me the pictures of her last trip. I felt connected and I loved it. The people I feel connected to are very precious to me.

I don't want to leave all this now. No matters what I will find here next. I am just not ready. I have many more things to live, share and experience in Montpellier before leaving. And yes, there are plane connections that are not too expensive, and it is not so far....but it will be not the same once I move, unfortunately. I wish I could live in a place I like where I could also have all the people who are important to me. I already know that this can never happen.

Today, to ease my being so agitate and sad, my mom and I went for more than a two hours walk along the beach and then this afternoon we relaxed at the beach, just reading and swimming in the ocean. It was good. I liked it....but it is weird and sad that right now I am not able to fully enjoy it. I am happy because I know that this is something I will enjoy of my life here, but I can't fully enjoy it now because I am aware of the fact that my life here will mean the end of my old life in Montpellier. And I don't like the idea too much.

moving- part three

We finally got to Vila do Conde, in Portugal.
From Burgos to get here we had to go up and down, up and down, up and down and so on for an infinite time across many mountains.....We had the same exact scenario for many hours....and unfortunately also the same music as we only bought a few cds of Zucchero and by now we listened to all of them many many times (and none of us likes radio very much)....I will need a detoxication from Zucchero after this trip.

The car was fully loaded with my things to move to Portugal. At the end I couldn't fit everything in there, but we managed to move a lot, the most important and heavier things for sure....now they are all in my friend garage, till when I will have my own apartment here.

I had a nice welcome as soon as I got here from a couple of people with whom I will work.
I also confirm my first impression that people of Portugal keep being very nice and drive very bad.
I miss Montpellier and the close people I have there....Today I passed from feeling home sick to being excited for this new life.
My mom's reaction after seeing how far is the place where I will be working from where I would like to leave make my mood dropping to the floor.....she didn't seem too happy about this change in my life....at the end the important thing is that I will be happy here...and I hope so, even if for now is difficult to leave people I grew attached too and my apartment and the things I like of Montpellier behind.

moving,moving,moving

I am writing this post using my mom's little laptop....very cute, but my fingers are bigger than each of the letters, so to write every single world I need about 3 minutes of writing, deleting some additional letter that shouldn't have been there, writing again, etc. etc....basically, writing a single post will take me an hour :-(

I moved. Not definitively, but I am moving most of my stuff to Portugal already. Yesterday I felt very blue about it. No more pictures on the walls of my apartment, no more board on which to mimic the surfing, no more rollerblades, or books, or many summer dresses...not many things left in my apartment in Montpellier. All these things will spend the next months closed in boxes and left in a basement of a friend of mine in Portugal.

My schedule for the next months includes the following crazy trips across countries:
- Currently, a road trip with my mom to bring my stuff to Portugal. We left Montpellier today and we will be back on the 24. First stop, the one of today, Lleida, in Spain....where we found 37 degrees of temperature to wait for us....no matter what, we went for a long long walk...I needed some movements after so many hours in the car.
- Back to Montpellier till September 25, when I will go to Luxembourg for a week.
- Back to Montpellier again.
- Sometimes during the first two weeks of October, I will spend a long week end in Italy.
- Back to Montpellier till October 15 or 17
- Take a plane to move myself and my life to Portugal.
- November in Costa Rica, with a stop in the USA for a few days.
- Back to Portugal for a few days.
- December 8 I will have to be in Montpellier. I will stay for a few days and then
- Italy for Christmas

My life is going to be a bit scattered around, as always when I move from one country to another. I will miss the few close friends I made in Montpellier. I will truly miss some of these people. And I know that I am lucky because I already have friends where I will go in Portugal. I even have one very close friend there. But every time I move from a place to another, it is always hard to leave people I feel close to behind....I hope that we will be able to keep in touch and see each other, but of course it will be not the same and it makes me very very sad.

I guess that has someone told me recently, this is my life and I should be kind of used to it...but the truth is that every time is painful for me to leave people and things of my old life to which or to whom I am attached to to start a new life somewhere else.

PS. I really have problems with Spanish food...it is so much about meat and I do not really eat meat that much.....My mom and I got crazy tonight to find something to eat.....but we managed.

PPS. Next stop of this road trip: Burgos, tomorrow.

I feel lucky

I feel extremely lucky. I know very wonderful people. Interesting and wonderful people. I just had two very close friends visiting me and I had a great time with both of them (too bad that when I am having a good time, it runs away so fast...). One of them lives in Portugal and I always stayed at his place when I went there to arrange things for my new job. His house is always open for me, as well as his heart when I need someone to talk too. I have met some really wonderful person in my life so far and I feel very, very lucky for that. Good, interesting, loving people. I am always positively surprise by the good heart of people, because it is a very rare and a very precious quality and I highly value people who are not just absorbed by themselves.

My plan is to take a road trip with my mom and drive with most of my stuff to Portugal at the end of the summer. I will leave my things in a garage of a friend. And this friend is another amazing person. I cannot believe that at first I had an horrible, horrible impression of him. I thought that he was very arrogant and I immediately did not like him at all. And it didn't matter if other mutual friends kept telling me that he is actually a nice person. I needed to see this with my own eyes. And I did. Fortunately, because otherwise I would have missed out a very altruistic, nice guy. I keep being impressed by how helpful, friendly, altruistic he is.

I have to say that I don't know why, but the best people, the most helpful and less selfish people I know are all men.....and they are not just very nice with me because they have some second goal, like sleeping with me, they are just naturally very good people. I feel so lucky in having met them! Truly good, helpful, altruistic people are so rare that they represent a treasure to me.....

La botte piena e la moglie ubriaca

This is another common Italian way of saying that indicates a person who wants it all. Like me right now. And not only right now, to be honest.
I just got back to Italy. Crazy how much I miss being there, with my family, my close friends that I know since I was little (or much younger anyway), my home town, the familiar things, the food I love. I know that I would get saturated of all these same things within a couple of days if I would live there, but when I am there for just a few days, it is never easy nor pleasant to leave.
It may sound very childish, but I do wish that I would have it all.
My family and my friends close to me, so that I could spend a proper normal time with them, without always having to rush.
My home town, which I truly, deeply, love because it is beautiful (too bad that I cannot say the same about the typical "Lucchese", the people of Lucca).
All the familiar things that make me feel immediately at home.
The hugs of my mom and my grandma.
The long beaches on which to walk in the evening, at the sunset.
The laughs.

Many years ago I took a decision, which was to leave Italy to try to do what I like as work. I have never regretted that decision, even now, even when things were very hard for me. I do what I like and I consider myself lucky for this possibility that I have. But my roots are important to me and there is not success in my work that can replace the emptiness given by not having my family and friends close to me to share things with them. I could try to go back, but in this moment of general economic crisis, there are not possibilities in Italy, especially considering that my job is not "commercially valuable".
My last ex-boyfriend often said that we should have tried to find a way to spend half of the year living where we had a job and the other half of the year in Lucca, where I am from. Maybe half of the year would have been too much, but some months every year would be ideal. My next job is much more flexible of what I have now, so maybe it will be possible to work for some months from abroad...with abroad meaning Italy or any other place where I would like to be. For now I have to slowly get back to my life here.....one step at the time....

PS. Fortunately I have The Big Bang Theory and Sex and the City episodes to watch....perfect cheer me up tools!

I do miss Italy a lot

I watched a movie yesterday, Eat Pray Love. Beside that I don't get how the book (which I didn't read) and the movie could have had so much success, since the story doesn't seem very interesting to me, beside that, there was one scene in the movie in which I couldn't help but crying.

It is when Julie Roberts is in Italy and cooks for everyone, her friends and the family of one of this friends. This reminded me a lot of my mom, my mom's place in Italy, how she can make everyone feeling welcome at her place and how happy and familiar and so precious to me all the moments spent at the table eating together or in the kitchen talking. I grew up in my mom's kitchen. Or at least I recall a lot of happy, family moments always to be linked to her kitchen.

I do miss Italy a lot, because I am very proud of all the beautiful things we have (even if we are not very good at preserving and praising them), but I especially miss my family incredibly a lot, and every time I have to move again for work, I think if the new place where I will be will be easy enough to reach to allow me to spend a lot of time with my family. It is so difficult to be far from them and not being part of their daily normal life.

Season of presents thinking/shopping

We are getting close to Christmas again. I have to admit not only that I love Christmas, the Christmas atmosphere, the family getting together (even if often my family getting together ends up in some kind of minor drama), etc, etc, but I also love the materialistic aspect of Christmas.

I am not at all a materialistic person, but I love to find small gift for the ones I love. The presents I chose are never too expensive or pretentious, but I love to walk around looking for inspiration thinking of what the recipients of my present may like and of what could make them happy.

However, there is one person for which getting a present is always a major source of stress, which resolved in the last years in never getting anything for him. My father. I remember when my sister and I were little and we were going with my mom to search for presents for him (when my parents were still together). There was never a way to make him happy. First, he likes expensive things and dislike the un-expensive ones. So, a sweater which was not from Armani or especially Missoni generally ended up hidden somewhere to be given some year later to my sister or I (still completely new) with the excuse that it was too tight for him.
Clothing was to avoid as a present to him.
Anything too expensive was to avoid due to my sister and mine financial limitations.
Anything we could think of that he may like, either he already has it (in the last model, the best type, the coolest one, etc, etc) or he actually doesn't like it so much.
Anything handmade is not appreciated at all.

So considering the last development of my tormented non-relationship with my father, this Christmas I felt I would have liked to try to find a small present for him again. I thought of getting him a CD of a group that he may like and he doesn't know yet. I thought of the Editors. The risk is that our present is going to be a flop again.

How can you find a present for someone who already has everything he may want or like?
Any smart idea???

A poetry- Zucchero Chocabeck

My father came to visit me after my surgery.
Unexpectedly, I had a very good time talking to him. I can't allow myself to believe that people may change and that he may have started to care about me. The disappointment if this wouldn't be the case would hurt me too much. I have learned something about him in my life till now. But I have to admit that I was happy to have him here, that he was nice to me, and that he behaved like a "normal" caring father I guess should behave. So, it was nice.

Yesterday, I went out in the car with him and he was playing the new CD of Zucchero, an Italian singer that I really like. I read that this last album of Zucchero was really good and different in comparison to the previous ones. I read that it was a very intimate album.

At the first track of the album, I got goose bumps on my arms. The music was so melodic and the song so intense, that I felt like I was reading a wonderful poetry, and even more. My father this morning, before to leave to come back to Italy, left me the CD, so that I could listen to it all. I am listening to it now. I don't like all the songs in the same way (e.g., I am not crazy about "E' un peccato morir", even if it is more Zucchero old style), but I suggest the CD anyway or at least to get some of the songs, because they are marvelous. I am amazed that Zucchero is not better known outside Italy. He is one the contemporary Italian singers that I like most. Of this album, "Oltre le rive" touches me to the core.

Another important thing. I saw on the CD that Zucchero supports the Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla, another good reason to get this CD: enjoy the good music and also do something good for others (in this case people with sclerosis).

Let me know if you like Chocabeck too.

Rejuvenating treatment

I came back from Italy only a few days ago.

I didn't do too much there, beside sleeping a lot, reading, eating good food (and quickly gaining weight. Italian food is SO GOOD!), spending time with family and friends, going to the swimming pool or to the sea.

The result is that I came back not only very relaxed, but I apparently look also rejuvenated. Probably it is due to the fact that I don't have anymore the deep black circles under my eyes due to the lack of sleep. Or probably it is due to the fact that my face is not all wrinkled as when I spend hours frustrated in front of the computer trying to finish something....anyway, the result of my 10 days in Italy is that I relaxed a lot, spent quality time with myself and my family and friends, and now I look happier and younger.

The time I spent away from here was also very useful in helping me to keep things in perspective. I realized that I am actually happy that I didn't get one of the jobs I applied to this year. It wouldn't have been good for me. And even if at work everyone makes me feel that I am too old already to get a permanent position, I realized when I was in Italy that almost 35 is not old at all, whatever people here may think and I shouldn't let their opinions influence me and the way I feel about myself and what I did till now (which maybe will not give me a job easily, but it gave me a lot of beautiful memories and experiences).

.......coming back here made me feel a bit home sick.....

Traveling again

I was supposed to get a train to go to Italy. My best' friend kid is going to be baptized tomorrow. Plus, on monday is my father birthday (not that we ever celebrate the birthdays together), plus I wanted to spend some time with my grandma and mom.

I got back from my previous trip deadly tired and I also had a job interview yesterday (but I didn't get the job). Traveling was the last thing I wanted to do now, no matter if it was about going to Italy or in any other place. I just would like to sleep, enjoy the sun here and have a day in which I can just do nothing if I want to.

I got an email before yesterday, at 11 pm saying that I should go to Perpignan for work. Fortunately Perpignan is still in the South of France and hopefully I can be back tonight.....but still. I canceled my trip to Italy, I woke up at 6am this morning and I am getting ready to move again...

My friend didn't take it well at all. I expected that. She took like I don't care about her and she is not part of my priorities....I knew it. My grandma was not happy either, but she understood. My father will take it very badly too.......

It is amazing how the ones who really give me less in their lives, from whom I never hear in months, than get very disappointed if for ones I let them down and I am not doing what it is supposed to be the right thing. Going to Perpignan is not ideal either for me, but the trip is for sure better than spending 12 hours in a train to be in Italy for 2 days to spend other 12 hours in a train to get back. Of course, as it is me traveling all the time and not them, it is difficult to understand how I could be tired of moving or how I need to be selfish now to be able to sleep and just be without having deep bags under my eyes all the time. I am aware that not going to Italy may not be the right thing to do, but why when I do something to take care of myself which doesn't match the expectations of other people (whom I spoiled probably too much, always thinking about them), then I get people I care a lot about giving me a lot of problems for it???

A tea and a chat

France, afternoon

After surviving a snow storm in Germany (I got back on thursday from Frankfurt) and getting back home in France, I got a bit of homesick feeling, after almost a month spent in Italy with family and close friends.

So today, before going food shopping and to Ikea, I sent a sms to a friend if she wanted to meet for a tea and to catch up. We met and sat in the sun at a cafe', drinking tea and chatting for hours, till it got too cold to stay outside. It was nice and it made me feel a connection with here again. She is quite different than me, but she is very open mind and she has traveled around the world because of her work (and lived in many different places) like me, so in some way, it was easier for me to bond with her than with other people I met since I moved here. I like to be alone and I am very independent. I don't mind doing my things and doing things I like alone. But sometimes I really need a contact with the outside world that goes beyond the "bonjour" or "bonsoir" that I can say to the lady at the cash-register when I go food shopping. Drinking tea with a friend for me is relaxing, highly enjoyable, and therapeutic when I start to feel a bit blue.......

People to whom you can connect to make a very big difference in my life when I move to a new place. They can make a difference between having a crap time where I am or enjoying the place where I get to live. So, I am very happy that I have met her a few months ago.

P.S. Yesterday I went again for a tea and a chat with a kind of family relative who lives here and I didn't manage to meet in a long time. Again, it was very nice and very enjoyable. And I tried a very good green tea. It had ginger in there....very good!!! I am not a tea-freak, not a tea-connoisseur, but I like tea (including herbal tea) a lot and I like to try different tea types. Today I just got a plain Jasmine tea.

Heading to Oregon

Italy, afternoon

If these holidays brought me something good (except the forced rest due to being sick for over a week), for sure it is a much nicer relationship with my mom. The relationship that I have with my mom is characterized by a lot of ups and downs over the years, depending on the reciprocal level of stress due to other things and regularly taken on each other when we end up in the same place.

This time, independently of the stress and of other things that may have happened, so far we had a great time (and I need to knock on wood at this point, since I will spend some more days here in Italy). I am appreciating the quality time spent with her so much, that it will be hard to leave and being far again. We went to see a ballet, we took long walks, we went to the movie theater (a few days ago to see Sherlock Holmes, which we loved!!! I really enjoyed the way the movie was directed), we improvised a lunch out, we talked a lot, we took a lot of rain, we laughed. It was just very, very nice as it hasn't been in a long time. It felt like we were again on the same wave length again.

So, as since a while I am thinking that I would like to spend some time visiting Oregon, and especially Portland (and this may be due to two bloggers (MissB and Piccola) that I follow who live in Oregon), I was thinking that I may start to plan a couple of weeks visit with my mom. I like traveling with her. We both love walking around, and she is very open in terms of food, things to see, experiences to have....I know that a couple of weeks would probably not be enough, but I don't think that I could take more time away (nor my mom could)....I don't even know if it could happen this year, but it is already nice to start to think about it, read about it and make some ideal plan!!!

Of course, Oregon bloggers, any input about best season to go there, what to see in two weeks, etc, is very welcomed!!!