chance encounters

My loves,

Okay. I have to fill you in, and I told myself that I wasn’t going to force a Sunday newsletter since I just wrote one on Friday, but this story is just too good to wait. Also, I’m scared that if I don’t write it out now, I will forget.

So, if you recall, my goal of the week was to move on from a certain someone and a certain situation that was just not going to end well. Proud of us for pulling the trigger and getting out early. Was it easy? Absolutely not. Better now than 6 months from now? Absolutely, 1000% yes. And, as my best friend put it: “Better now than before he had the chance to taint the city for you.” Which I think is sound advice for anyone and everyone. 

It’s a Saturday, and the first Saturday in Rome where I do not have plans. Thankfully, work is busy so I decided to dedicate the day to work and cafe hop. Journal in hand, pen in purse, running around like Rome’s very own Carrie Bradshaw, in a blue linen mini dress and sneakers. I get about 5 minutes of work done before I realize it’s too hot and I have PTSD from Thursday’s meltdown, so I decide to spend the afternoon cleaning my apartment and meditating. 

I haven’t meditated in so long, and each time I start - I forget why I stopped. I always appreciate the art of meditation, because when you are both an air sign and a writer, you tend to live inside your head. Meditation always reminds me that there is a world that exists outside the narrator in my brain, which is always making up 80 different scenarios and stories at any given point during the day. Oh my god, I really need to stop thinking so much - is what I repeatedly tell myself after every meditation. 

One of my other annoying toxic traits is that I can talk myself out of anything just as quickly as I talk myself into anything. Do I go for dinner - no I should save money and make a boring omelet  instead / Do I go inside the store - no because you can’t trust yourself to not buy 3 new black slip dresses / Do I go on a date - no because he will probably end up having a secret family, etc. etc. etc. 

So, naturally, one of my new goals is to get out of my head. Because the best things always happen when you don’t think so much, and you just go with it. After I meditated, and after an hour conversation where I was just arguing with myself about where I should go for dinner/ if I should just make a boring omelet, I end up telling myself “Emily, shut the fuck up” - and decide to stumble into a place my friend recommended with the cutest little terrace in the back. Secluded by tree and string lights, it was time for vino blanco and caponata. 

After that beautiful meal (that was only 11 euros btw), I walk home. 

Sidenote: You guys, thank you for listening because this story is a ramble, but I promise everything will make sense once I get to the finish line.

Now, the thing is - the object of the past few newsletter’s place of work is directly en route with my walk home. There is no way around it, and if I’m being honest - do I really want to avoid it when I’m wearing one of my shortest dresses and I still have a post heatstroke/post vino bianco/post caponata glow? Absolutely not. 

And we can usually thank technology for moments like these. We can pretend to be immersed in an a Very Important Phone Call on a Saturday night (lol ok), scroll through IG, blast Lana, look Very Preoccupied, while casually on a saunter, hoping he will look out the window and do a quick double take at the most opportune time. Always, always accidentally ruin someone’s life - remember that. 

Anyways, my phone dies. Right in front of the place. I have nothing to look at to distract me, until all of the sudden, a man comes up to me and starts speaking Italian. And usually, I do NOT entertain anyone that speaks to me on the street, but, as my meditation taught me this afternoon - I need to stop thinking so much. Also, he’s hot.

I tell him I don’t speak Italian, and he says, “Oh, I was just complimenting you - and wanted to tell you that you’re very beautiful and that dress looks great on you.” I thank him, and start to ramble about the dress being a few years old (I have a hard time taking compliments, and I usually just start telling random stories when someone gives me one). He asks me to go for a walk before he has to go for dinner, and I say yes. Immediately, without thinking. 

Now, I did this because it was still light outside and there were millions of people out (we always have to be prepared), and I also loved the fact that we were going to walk right outside our old friend’s place of work and there was maybe a 45% chance he would look out the window and see me walking with our new curly-haired friend, Stefano. 

So, we walk for a bit, and end up sitting on a park bench. He says to me, “Do you tend to overanalyze and think too much? Or do you just go with your intuition on making decisions?” And I, go quiet, because this is the second time a man has seemingly read into my mind and soul in the past few months. I tell him that I am making a conscious effort to not think so much - and he says to me, “See what happens when you don’t? Sometimes, in the chaos of everything going on in the world - things like this happen.”

A well rehearsed line? Potentially. But we’ll take it.

He asks for my number. And my phone is dead, and I do not have my Italian number memorized. But, thankfully, I was Carrie Bradshaw today and carried a pen in my purse for the first time. Also thankful that I had a million receipts for him to write his number on. 

Anyways, I will end this story here, because it was a long one, and sometimes I feel embarrassed for talking about myself for so long.

There are many morals to this story - the obvious one being: dress up for every single occasion because you’ll never know who you’ll run into on a street corner at the most opportune time. But also, maybe just try to not talk yourself out of every good thing. And, I’ve always believed everyone is meant to teach you something. Maybe they’re not meant to be in your life forever, maybe they’re meant to be a Sunday afternoon or a Saturday evening stroll.

So, my beautiful friends, I hope that you fall in love, fall out of love, pray to what you believe in, meditate, hydrate, become best friends with highlighter and self-tanning drops, eat something other than potato pizza, find a new café, trust that you’ll get to where your going, trust that what wants to find you will find you, be proud of who you were and who you are, flirt with life and everything that comes along with it, and just be.

I love you all, so, so, so much. And I am so thankful that this newsletter was not a weepy one. The strides we’ve made since a week ago!

Xo, forever and ever.

Emily