a hometown honeymoon

saying goodbye, but actually this time.

Hello my friends,

It is 6 pm on a Friday evening in June. I am sitting in the backyard of my childhood home in Toronto. It is probably the most perfect day weather wise - the sun is out, it’s 22 degrees, and there’s the tiniest breeze. I have one glass of red wine beside me (from Sardinia -  because it’s our Friday night glow tradition, after all. I also have this theory that everything from Sardinia makes you glow. Actually, I don’t even think that’s my theory, I feel like it just might be a proven fact.)

Anyways, the peonies in my backyard bloomed last week, and sitting here a week later, all I can see is a blanket of pink petals that covers the entire garden.

I have to be honest with you - I don’t have a theme or a story for this week, again, because I am not running around causing problems in Italy. And I should follow up with the phrase “causing problems”. I don’t want people to think that I am a menace to Italian society and am doing things that I shouldn’t be doing. Mainly, when I say “causing problems”, I am referring to accidentally having day long aperitivo and then accidentally falling in love. And I would say that falling in love, can sometimes be considered a problem. 

So, naturally, we needed a breather. We needed things to feel easy and safe again. We needed to have our huge mugs of drip coffee in the morning and cuddle with Goose and Toulouse. We needed to stay in on Friday and Saturday nights and watch Real Housewives and spend $19 to order chips on Uber Eats. We needed to see our best friends for spritzes, we needed to see our best friends get married, and we just needed to see our best friends in general.

One of my favourite things to do in the summer evenings is walk. Like a 65 year old, I cannot wait for my after dinner stroll in the neighbourhood, especially after everything has rained and it always smells like trees and jasmine and someone deciding to bbq a steak dinner. I always find comfort in wandering around the same streets, seeing the same houses, and picking up the same combination of forest berry and lemon gelato.

I sat on my porch steps the other evening and starred at the “sold” sign on my lawn.

How many times do we get to say goodbye to things? I’ll be honest with you, I have left this home numerous times with 0 intentions of coming back. But for some reason, I always end up coming back again, again, and again. And I think about the process of goodbyes, and maybe I like to draw them out because, sometimes, we think we’re ready when we’re really not.

You know what makes me laugh? The same way I swore a million times to myself that I would never come back here is how I like to end relationships. I make some dramatic exit (remember - our goal is to always accidentally ruin someone’s life), announce that they’ll never see me again, and then a few days later I reappear apologizing and asking for my phone charger back. 

But I’d like to think that me and this house are on a mutual understanding now. It’s held me enough times over the years as I grew, outgrew, left, and came back. The dark wooden baseboards and antique chandeliers. How my friends would open the back door to the garden in the summer, all of us balancing our glasses of wine and plates of full of bread and tomatoes just to sit on the patio.

I’ll miss the smell of coffee being ground at 9 pm, so it can be ready to brew first thing in the morning. I’ll miss lighting candles on a rainy Wednesday evening to do pilates in my bedroom. I’ll miss the way Goose and Toulouse wake me up at 6 am every Sunday morning for salmon. I’ll miss the park down the street that was always perfect for that pandemic park date. 

I feel lucky that I’ve been able to say goodbye numerous times. And I wonder how many times this house has rolled it eyes at me as I walked out the front door, telling myself it would be the last time.

But do we really say goodbye to things that we know will never leave us?

I didn’t mean to cry while writing this. I’ve been holding it together pretty well over the past few weeks, mainly because so many other new things have been happening that it’s just felt like the right time to let go of something old. But there will always be a spot in my heart for this home. And I know it was home to others before it was a home to me, and it will now hold a new young family and the life that they’ll create together. But I’m secretly hoping that I’ll always be its favourite memory.

Well everyone, here’s to turning 29. Here’s to a new Roman apartment. Here’s to many more newsletters, many more moments of falling in love, and many more midnights in the piazza. Here’s to the smell of morning espresso, and here’s to a new home to hold these memories in.

And honestly - here’s to you. Writing to you is my favourite thing I’ve accomplished this year. The way we can connect over experiences that I thought I was alone in.

Thank you for always supporting me and reading these letters, thank you for following along on these adventures, and thank you for believing in me.

I love you more than words.

XO forever + ever,

Emily