Ciao amore mio
I am writing from our couch in Singapore, in a house that is almost empty….well definitely messy, a few days before taking you back to Italy to live. I will come back by myself on July 10th to pack the last bit of our belongings and put 21 years of my adult life in one container and come back to you. Come back to you…to our new home…to your brand brand new home but that is my old home.
I left home when I was 19, in 1997. I decided a few years before then, that I wanted to study Chinese language and culture and at that time the only place close to my home, that taught Chinese was Venice “Ca’ Foscari”. As a matter of fact, that was a great university for Oriental studies, I dare say the best in Italy. So I remember I packed with nonno and nonna and I found a flat at Zattere…just behind Accademia. I moved there with a girl that was with me in high school, but I wont spend time talking about her cause this lady added very little to my existence and I really believe she is not worth any mention in my dialogue with you.
Since then, lots of things changed. My dad died in 1999 (June 13th) and I kept coming back and forth from Venice (I was also in a very serious relationship at the time) but I never went back to live there on a regular base. Back home that is Casalmaggiore/Vicomoscano. On November 23rd 2002 (exactly 23 days after my graduation) I moved to Shanghai. I went with Marco (Bresciani – I hope he is still in our life now that you read…he is still now that I am writing this) and I have never left Shanghai till 2017 when I was about to have you.
Now I am ready to go back…at first my decision was driven by the fact that the financial pressure in Singapore as single solo parent entrepreneur was literally eating me alive and therefore I decided I had to move cause my lifestyle, although formidable for some aspects, was not sustainable anymore. But the more this idea was created and the more this idea was becoming a solid reality, the more I was owning it at many different levels.
I thought… well yeah I can explore more professional options there…..well yeah I can save money on some things and invest them in making my girl (you) travel Europe…well yeah I can see many people that have moved from Asia way more often now…well yeah I can drive every day…well yeah I can rest my mind a bit, being in a place where I don’t need to justify my presence as I am a citizen of this country finally….well yeah I can finally have some rights….but in the end I have realised (just recently to be fair) that I need to go back to where everything started to keep on growing up. In a bizarre and unexpected way I feel I need this deeply…I need to reconcile my old me – the young girl – and the me now – the adult woman and mother – and make these two people meet and be one…no more dichotomy and I feel I can only do this there…and nowhere else in the world.
And I deeply feel that if I don’t do, I won’t continue in my growing and maturing process. I have never lived as an adult back there… I have never had my own place there. For obvious reasons too, but somehow that didn’t allow me to step out and up from the “daughter-girl” role and being who I am really. It took me many hours of therapy, many many conversations with my friends, many many books to finally understand this…and when I say conversations or books I am not saying that we were talking about this topic specifically or even about me specifically, for that matter…but when you are used to speak to yourself and try your best to read yourself deeply, ANYTHING can become a spark of enlightenment and a spark of epiphany and clearance. So through all of that now, I can tell you I NEED TO GO BACK TO MY HOME. I need to do it for me and a direct consequence for you, who are the most powerful inspirations of all my deeds. I want to be a much better version of myself every day that I wake up, I do this for myself cause I know you are looking. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes being better than yesterday, might mean, just chilling and learn how to rest. Yes because when you are an over achiever, you are a victim of your own expectations (most times driven by the way you have been raised) and you must learn how to step away from it. I am learning…and I am also learning my worth and that my needs are important. And that I need to appreciate myself and be proud of who I am and to ask for help (that is a tough one for me).
I wont get into the details of the many folds that the sentences I wrote above carry, but one day I will tell you all, maybe in the next post…God knows.
What I can tell you for sure though, is that you should never stop working towards understanding yourself…that relationship is the most important one you will ever have….above all, above anyone’s. In the last 3 years I had a good guidance through my therapist (Laura), that I had to say goodbye to on Monday (I cried a lot) and its been hard work but SO LIBERATING to do the work. I will keep in touch with her, cause I know that once I will be back and my two MEs will meet, it might be a bit destabilising, therefore I will keep on having her in my corner to help me navigate my complex emotional world.
Ok I just wanted to tell you this.
You are in school at the moment, you are very excited to get to Italy and Saturday you have a birthday party to go to that you cannot wait for.
You are a wonderful child and I am oh so lucky to be your mother.
I love you, my sensational baby.
La mamma