Roma Redux

And another adventure begins. Two years after our sad departure from our time living in Rome, we're back. With baby in tow again. It's like déjà vu, the good kind, when you search your brain for the familiarity and trace it back to an incredibly happy, endearing dream. The time we spent here with Luca as a baby has become a fantasy I want to recreate. Despite some of the emotional difficulties I faced in acclimating to the culture as a new mom, the time here was one of the few moments I've felt like I was my best self for a period that extended beyond those fleeting vacation days spent abroad. Those vacations only suspended my reality long enough for me to imagine a life without a work grind, I was never able to actually manifest that life for myself. The 8 months of suspended reality, living as an ex-pat, thinking it was a longer term life change, it forced me to find daily inspirations and to savor every moment I didn't have to compromise. I got to focus on being a mom without feeling the entrapment of that identity because I had a job. But the job was the first that I could leave behind when my hours were completed. But the time spent at work felt incredibly fulfilling and worthwhile. I was teaching English, which was far from a step forward on paper, but it allowed me the chance to connect with people as people and not as strange business colleagues. I had full autonomy to design my daily lessons and I dedicated myself to figuring out the best way to give people what they were ultimately looking for - a way to connect with people in a different language. I was so entrenched in that dilemma myself that it felt good to share my experience in real time and to teach people to avoid the obstacles I had tripped over more than once in my learning of Italian. Needless to say, my suspended reality will come to a close as soon as everyone wakes up here in a minute, as having kids keeps you from ever really being on vacation. But lucky for me, travel insomnia allows me to engage my inspiration and try to capture it before it scurries away when my mind gets cluttered with feeding and changing schedules. I'm not sure what to anticipate from these 5 weeks, as I'll be juggling work through three of them, but somehow this feels like a big change, like a crossroads is on the horizon. The frantic and frenetic pace I've been trying to uphold over the last 5 months since I've written a word here, has dampened a big piece of my spirit. It's the piece that reminds me I musn't be complacent and think that my story ends as my kid's stories begin. I want to be an example of what is possible, not what had to be left behind. I refuse to put my head in an oven. I'm in a new developmental milestone, one I'm beginning to believe comes for everyone right around this time. It's a turning point where our expectations of where we would be at this point in our lives leads us to judgement instead of celebration. This place is the hardest thus far, but also the most rewarding. I'm learning more than I have since my early twenties. I'm trying to figure things out again, but with many more tools at my disposal. I like this moment. Three weeks of working nights will be tough, but my daily responsibilities (pick-ups, drop-offs, babysitter/daycare schedule coordination, packing lunches, getting everywhere late), these tasks have been reduced so much that even after 14 hours of travel with two kids under 3, and no sleep, it feels like a vacation. And for me, despite working, it will be. My life as it has been over the last six months is not one that I want to return to. Things will change after this trip, I will no longer be running myself ragged the way I have been. I'm too old, I can't bounce back from that level of stress the way I once could. And fuck it, why should I try? There are better ways. I shouldn't have to run the race I've been running. Being here, with time on my hands, I am bound and determined to find them. And P.S. I realize the formatting is rough, it's 3am and I'm on the iPad and I'm too tired to figure out line breaks.