Thursday, February 9, 2012

This post makes no sense because I wrote it with a gaggle of whining kids in the background.


Does two kids count as a gaggle?

Anyway. I’ve been feeling guilty about not writing for quite some time, but everything that comes into my head lately is either too depressing, too boring or would need fifty pages of explanatory preamble to make sense, so I haven’t been writing. But then today I decided to just stop feeling guilty and just write something already. Anything. Cause I like this blog and I don’t want to let it go off into inexistence quite yet, but each day that I ignore it, with a hundred and one supremely valid yet nonsensical excuses, makes it all the harder to go back to it.

I seem to always hit a certain degree of mal de vivre and of regret whenever I come back to Italy from a trip to Houston. I hate boohooing, I made a conscious choice to stay in Italy when I married the Husband and though we had always planned to move to the States I knew that there were no guarantees. And yet, all I’ve been doing since I’ve been back, nay, since before I even left Houston, is hating on Italy and letting all the little irritating things of everyday life become big, huge mountains that I have no will to face.

The truth though, if I really sit and look at it, is that there are just as many things that potentially would irritate me about living in the U.S., were I living there, because, no place is perfect and unfortunately the grass is always greener in the yard where I am not. (Did that sentence make any kind of sense outside my own head?)

Unfortunately, when I get myself into this funk, I tend to blame the Husband. He’s the one that’s making me stay here, it’s his fault, if only he hadn’t tricked me into marrying him… as if I had no free will…
So he’s been bravely, and somewhat resignedly, bearing the brunt of my bad behavior (I really intended to write mood here, but I simply cannot resist alliterating when I can), and I’m trying half-heartedly to return some semblance of sanity and reason back into my life. Because, despite what I would have me believe, Italy is not the antechamber of hell, it is a perfectly pleasant, though somewhat eccentric and often baffling country to live in. A country where logic and reason has no place (just look at the politics, or rather don’t, cause it’s depressing but that’s just an example) but that has many other qualities which I won’t enumerate here because I’m not there yet even though I’m now aware that there are good things, and I’ll soon start appreciating them again.

For now I’ll try to ignore the fact that both my kids managed to get sick after less than a day and a half back in school and the insanely cold temperatures and snow storms that hit just in time for our return home whilst diverting all of my attention to one of the regions main assets. The wine. 

4 comments:

  1. Being homesick sucks. It's funny, after we went to Hong Kong, when we got back to Thailand, I really started hating on Thailand. I did not expect that to happen, and it definitely hit me by surprise. This is no cure-all, but I did find that making an effort to see what's going on of interest in town did bring me out of my funk. We started going out to see Thai movies and I picked up some event calendars to see what theater performances were going on - neither of which were things we had done before - and just getting immersed back in the culture helped pull me out of my funk. Every time I do get in a funk though, I try not to take it too seriously, because one thing I've learned so far from this adventure is that I shouldn't trust my emotions too much. For better of worse, eventually, they all pass and something new comes along.

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  2. I tend to blame my husband when I am in that kind of a mood (which always lasts a while after our return), like I had no choice when I agreed to marry him. And my kids have both been/are currently sick... so I am with you the whole way. Pass the wine, since we both live in Italy...

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  3. These men..."making" us live place we don't want to live. So annoying...

    I hope you enjoy your wine and have lots of it!

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  4. Ah Italy, a country of contradictions and extremes.

     A year ago my husband suddenly found himself out of work and we had no option but to plan a move back to the UK. After a few weeks of tears whenever I found myself on my own, I started to think about all the things I miss about Scotland and all the things that drive me nuts about Italy, cue new job in Milan and a struggle to reverse my thinking!

    I know that anywhere we choose to live will have aspects that drive me absolutely nuts and set off my rants but I also know that given time, I'll come around and enjoy my life again. In the meantime, there is wine!

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