​I couldn’t believe the summer was ending. Just a few weeks ago, I remember holding my passport and a dog-eared dictionary in my hand as I waited impatiently for my backpack. It was easy to spot, covered in patches that I’d hand-sewed from every city I’d ever visited. Usually I would sit on a hostel floor, armed with the needle and thread and as if it were some kind of ritual, I would sew on the newest one the last night in a country. The Canadian flag patch was by far the dirtiest but also in the best spot on the backpack –  front and center, the right-hand corner was peeling off and the maple leaf was just barely distinguishable due to one too many snags on a bus, plane, train, or rickshaw. It may have also fallen off a donkey at some point or a Mongolian wild horse, I can’t quite remember. There was a tiny, free spot right under that patriotic patch for the one country that I was missing, the country that I had just landed in.
 
I was in Italy for the first time. I told myself that I was saving the best for last and it turned out to be true. This was the end of my around-the-world trip, one that I had booked with a broken-heart and an overdrafted bank account with the sole idea of leaving both behind on the runway as the first plane took off. Three days prior to the purchase of a plane ticket, my high school boyfriend told me was no longer happy. He stopped at “happy”, as that would prevent me from imagining how that was actually supposed to end. I half-expected him to give me the dreaded “it’s not you, it’s me” speech, but we both knew it wasn’t true. It was me. I had become complacent, not just with us, but with life. Everything I had was exactly what I had worked so hard to have and I found myself in my late-twenties wanting none of it. I would stay up at night, wide-eyed and fearful of something that I couldn’t put a finger on, a monster in waiting that somewhat resembled my future and it was terrifying.
 
And that’s how I found myself one sunny August morning, downing a caffè corretto to calm my nerves and help my rusty university Italian. I was staying with a friend in a town I couldn’t pronounce the name of, a friend that coincidentally had been in my university Italian classes until he met a fabulous Italian queen with the best eyebrows I’d ever seen and the two of them strutted onto a plane with a one-way ticket back to the queen’s hometown in Tuscany. It was the scandal of the century at first, but now they are, fittingly so, town royalty, and I was to be the guest of honour this summer. They literally laid out the red carpet for me and suddenly this foreign country felt like home. I spent the first week in a shameless Chianti-fuelled daze by the turquoise pool overlooking an expansive olive grove.
 
I ventured into town the second Monday, dripping with sweat and chlorine from the pool, my hair in a messy bun falling off one side of my head and the straps of my yellow sundress falling off both shoulders. They say fate has a sense of humour and that afternoon confirmed it. I was such a state: bare-faced, shiny and boasting the biggest sunglasses known to man and of course it was in that moment that I ran into him. Him with a capital H. I had been warned beforehand, a detailed physical description of the one man I had to be sure to avoid at all costs was given to me my first night in Italy. The description was drilled in my head and his photograph (conveniently fished off social media) was burned in my memory: tall, olive skin, dark eyes and even darker hair, and a jawline that looked like it could injure someone. He looked like a group of single foreign women had convened to provide one of those police sketches and that their prompt was “sexy Italian man”. Yet after almost a year of travelling solo as a female, I had met my share of attractive men the world over. From blue-eyed Danish models to hip-swaying Latin Americans, I was immune to seduction by the time I arrived in Italy.  I remember laughing out loud, thinking how absurd it all was because how dangerous could one small-town Italian man be? Famous last words. 

To be continued...
Read ten very short stories which are now available as a cute collection in my first eBook: This Sweet Life. You can download it for FREE in my store! Or read the individual posts in the Creative Writing category.
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This is part of the #DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #16 May 2019. Add any Italy-related post to the linkup party below and join the fun. We are looking forward to another year of this wonderful community. Our goal is to connect over our shared love of Italy. Thank you all who have participated before, and those who join in the future!
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If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below!
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Past #DolceVitaBlogger Link-Ups:
#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #14 March 2019
#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup – #13 February 2019
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup – #12 January 2019
#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup – #11 October 2018 – Hilarious Travel Mishaps
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup – #10 September 2018 – Favourite Italian Recipe
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #9 August 2018 - Culture Shock
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #8 July 2018 - La Dolce Vita
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #7 June 2018 - Hidden Gems in Italy
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #6 May 2018 - Five Italian Words
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #5 April 2018 - The Perfect Day in Italy
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #4 March 2018 - International Women's Day
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #3 February 2018 - A Love Letter to Italy
#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #2 January 2018 - Favourite Italian City
​#DolceVitaBloggers Linkup - #1 December 2017 - 'The Italian Connection
​

Most recent posts:
​Creative Writing: Magnolia
​Creative Writing: Acqua e Sapone
​Creative Writing: Screw Soulmates
Creative Writing: The Romantics (Non-Fiction)
Creative Writing: All the Sunsets
Creative Writing: Happier
​Creative Writing: Whiskey 
​Creative Writing: The Perfect Day in Italy 
​Creative Writing: Call Me Baby 
​Creative Writing: The Butterfly Effect 
 
In the first eBook:
​Creative Writing: The Letter R (Explicit)
​Creative Writing: Dear Italy (A Love Letter)
Creative Writing: Airport Arrivals
​Creative Writing: Tanqueray and You
​Creative Writing: A Thousand Lives
​Creative Writing: A Sunday Kind of Love
​Creative Writing: Perfect Strangers in Switzerland
​Creative Writing: Rooftops and Rome
​Creative Writing: The Morning After in New York
​Creative Writing: Mulberries in Sicily

​Hi everyone and apologies for my recent absence. As some of you know that follow me on other social media, I was hosting my husband’s cousins who came to visit us from Canada over Easter. For this reason, I was a bad, bad blogger and a bad #DolceVitaBloggers host as I didn’t get to post with the rest of the community for the April linkup. I’ve finally found a bit of time as it’s terribly rainy here and freezing for being the beginning of May so there’s really little to do but curl up with a coffee and my laptop.

Today’s post is one that I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. I’ve been living in Italy since late 2014 and while I have had my ups and downs with her, our relationship has always had more of the former but I wanted to talk about how this isn’t the case for everyone who moves here. And I wanted to talk about how that is okay.

Over the years, I’ve said goodbye to a handful of friends who came, saw, and in the end, conquered their own fears and doubts about “renouncing” the dolce vita and are living much happier, fulfilling lives in their native countries or simply in another one that isn’t Italy. Through all this, I’ve noticed a trend which is that it is hard to admit you want and need to leave which might seem as if it’s hard to say “arrivederci” to Italy but what it really comes down to, like so many things that hold us back in life, is that we think too much about the expectations of others. Just as so many Italians ask me “ma che ci fai qui?” (what are you doing here [in Italy]?) which always has the underlining assumption that “life is better in North America”, the same is true for those who utter the words “I’m leaving Italy”. Those of you who have never lived here or lived abroad will likely think that this combination of words is absolute blasphemy or that the person saying it is absolutely crazy. And this, my friends, is a Problem with a capital P because it makes expats who are thinking of leaving their adopted country feel something that they shouldn’t – ashamed. I was so disheartened to see that Canadian vlogger Zoey Arielle, upon deciding to leave Italy, felt as if she needed to do a whole video (below) essentially “explaining” why had chosen to leave. We expats most often never have to “explain” to people why we’re moving to Italy and even if we do, it’s usually something like “uh, the pizza life chose me, duh” and everyone accepts that. So why do we have to explain ourselves when we leave?

Well the first and main reason people move FROM Italy is for economic reasons. Employment falls under the second step in the pyramid. If you cannot find a job or are barely making ends meet,  you will always be stuck near the bottom. The original hierarchy states that a “lower level must be completely satisfied and fulfilled before moving onto a higher pursuit” which means that until you are economically stable (something that not even many native Italians are, figuriamoci foreigners), you won’t be able to reach that coveted tip of the pyramid that is the goal of most millennial-types nowadays. The second step of the pyramid requires the achievement of financial security which is defined as: the condition of having stable income or other resources to support a standard of living now and in the foreseeable future. Many (not all, but many) expats AND Italians work on temporary contracts, so as you can understand, this does not satisfy that requirement of having stable income and basically explains the ‘brain drain’ and mass exodus of much of Italy’s youth to destinations abroad. They too are also looking to satisfy this second step in Maslow’s triangle. Those Italians who remain can remain because they often have the aforementioned “other resources” (parents or other relatives) who can help support them financially. I know it sucks to have to say that money is a driving factor and to place so much importance on it, but this is simply the truth and hence, FINANCES are the number one reason expats leave Italy.

Moving to the second reason that causes us to have to leave Italy (or any country we’ve expatriated to), after physiological and safety needs are met, we move to the middle layer which is so, so important and is where we look for, as humans, interpersonal relationships in our community and, this is key – A FEELING OF BELONGINGNESS. This third level is where there is a lot of struggle if the struggle isn’t financial. Say you have found a steady job in Italy, you can pay your rent or mortgage on time, there’s always funds for the extra shopping spree or glass of Barolo if you like, BUT you don’t have anyone to go on that shopping spree or to clink glasses with.

This is actually rarely the case because expats tend to group together and almost always have a friend group, but the interpersonal relationships extend not just in the sense of having friends but having a satisfying relationship with FAMILY and the COMMUNITY. Many expats dating or married to an Italian might be able to tick off family if they have children of their own in Italy and are therefore able to concentrate on their immediate family, however others might struggle if they don’t feel accepted by their partner’s family, especially since this is the only family an expat has physical contact with. This level is where language starts to play a huge part, if it already didn’t in the second level that employment falls under (you can work as an English teacher without speaking Italian, for example). You often need a certain fluency of Italian to be able to establish a relationship with Italian family members, otherwise those relationships will always stay superficial. Again, for some people this isn’t an issue , they might have other relationships that are able to satisfy their needs that aren’t familial and that’s fine too.

And yet even if your family situation is all hunky-dory and you have an amazing relationship with your mother-in-law, there’s the issue of your relationships in the community. Personally, I see a lot of struggle in achieving this, I’d likely say that this is the second biggest deciding factor if someone leaves Italy or not. You can have friends, you can have family, but you also need to FEEL LIKE YOU BELONG TO THE COMMUNITY. This is also the hardest thing to pinpoint but I can probably best describe it by describing my own experiences: I feel part of my community when I’m at the grocery store and the cashier recognizes me and asks me how my day is going or when the Chinese restaurant around the corner asks where my husband went because they know I always order take-out when he’s away on business. I feel like part of the community when I go to a group exercise class or even when I go to church or having a little chat with the post office worker or laughing out loud with a bunch of Italian teenagers in driver’s theory school. Belonging means feeling integrated, something that is often quite a challenge for any foreigner because it involves knowing a language and a culture and not only that, but accepting that language and culture and successfully mixing it with your own. It’s about overcoming that sensation of ME vs. THEM. You can be fluent in Italian and never get over that mentality because to get to an “US” frame of mind, you need that cultural acceptance as well. To see this in action might be when you’re standing line and complaining with the Italian lady behind you about how slow the cashier is, sharing that moment together and your mutual frustration towards something is an example of being part of the “US”.  A good friend of mine is from California and moved to Italy to play soccer. He's another example of someone who has a really strong sense of community here because being part of a team sport is an excellent way to integrate. 

Once you are over these two steps, the others become slightly easier and you are able to feel happiness and satisfaction with your life. Note that Maslow’s triangle wasn’t made for living abroad specifically, it was simply made to be applicable to living. So these things are true no matter where in the world you are, it’s just that moving to a foreign country brings you right back down to the bottom of the triangle and you’re required to build everything back up from scratch whereas you might have already been near the top in your home country. And as you can now see, the responsibility doesn’t depend on just the one person. Outside factors play a role in whether a person can move up the levels and this, folks, IS WHY THERE IS NO SHAME IN SAYING “ARRIVEDERCI” ITALY, because “success” abroad is multi-factorial and we all need to realize that. If you got to the end of this, thank you so much for reading and I hope this was helpful to anyone thinking of leaving Italy as well as to anyone thinking of moving here! Would also love to hear your thoughts on this issue, dear readers. 

If you’re interested in real stories about ex-Italy-expats, make sure to check out my series Ciao For Now or if you’d like to share your own experience, get in contact! ​

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like to "dare un'occhiata" at these ones or at the Expat Life
category on the sidebar. 

Past Ciao For Now posts:
Ciao For Now: Estrella of La Casabloga
​Ciao For Now: Martha of Martha Miller Writes
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Popular Posts on Dating and Relationships in Italy:
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Popular Posts about General Expat Life:
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