Nel Mezzo
Calling more than one place home is challenging. Your heart is never really in one place. But once settled in one or the other, you get into a cadence of life and fall into a sense of place. You fill up on experiences and memories of your ‘here’ and are able to tuck away the things you miss from the ‘there’. But when we start firming up our plans to leave one home to another, unique emotions set in.
Two times a year, we experience internal turmoil. The time leading up to leaving one life for another. The in-between.
Every minute becomes more meaningful as the clock ticks down. Walks around our village become slower as we try to burn every second into our memory. Vineyard walks take longer as we stop to take in the views. Park benches hold us in thought more than usual. We will miss the pace of life, the quiet, the ability to take Elliot with us everywhere, everyone loving on Elliot, the excited ‘buongiornos’ and ‘ciaos’ from friends and strangers alike, our countryside, the evening tuscan light, basically everything that is uniquely Italy. Our heart is heavy thinking about the things and people we will miss. It is enough to bring tears.
On the flipside of our heart, we are bursting with excitement to see our family. After a year off thanks to Covid, the thought truly is overwhelming. The idea of moving beyond the video chat screens and into real life, the promise of hugs and more time together, is enough to flood our eyes - again.
All the things we missed, will soon be within reach, yet they come at the cost of missing something else.
Life between two means your heart is always bursting with happiness and heavy with longing at the same time. Always. Unrelenting. But it’s the time just before transitioning from one to the other where all emotions fire at once: happy, sad, excited, scared, anxious, calm, certainty, uncertainty. The lumps in throat you can’t swallow. The tears just a blink away from falling. The pressure to burn every moment into memory so you don’t forget it ‘on the other side’.
While not ideal, living between two lives, has us keenly aware of our emotions, opens our hearts to feeling deeply, and tucks so many wonderful memories in our minds-eye. We are so thankful for the opportunity to have a ‘here’ and ‘there’. Life in two places forces you to be present and distant at once, to live with and without, and to not just imagine another life, but to live it. It is knowing how to say hello and goodbye in the same breath.
With every hello and goodbye, we get to gather a little of each and tuck it in our hearts. And however hard, we are able to shed a little of our heart each time we move from one life to another leaving it behind. How lucky we are to have the in-between and have both fill our heart.
Ci vediamo Italia, hello California.
