conversations with friends

signs + synchronicities, a baby hangover, and our move back

Oh my loves,

It feels like it’s been a while. And I realize it’s been almost 10 days since I last wrote to you, which is way beyond our limit of 7. 

I had a little letter that I wrote on my 20 hour journey back from Melbourne to Roma, but I realized that it wasn’t long enough. I wish you could have seen me on this flight. I looked like a little gremlin with my crooked glasses on that I’ve had since the eighth grade. I had a fleece hoodie pulled over my head, a blanket pulled up to my chin. Remember the art of traveling like an Italian woman? The bella figura lifestyle is impossible to maintain sometimes.

I’ll begin this letter just like how I begin my others. I’m curled up in bed with a blanket, espresso, and a cup of broth beside me. It’s 9 AM and 5 degrees in Roma. We’re the tiniest bit hungover - but I’ll tell you one of my favourite morning after tips. The day of - make a huge pot of vegetable broth. Carrots, onions, celery, parsley, potatoes. Throw them into a huge pot of boiling water, let it simmer all afternoon, then refrigerate it. You will be thankful the next morning. No nausea, no headache. Just a hydrated and hungover vegetable broth glow.

The theme in this week’s writing group was signs + synchronicities. I asked everyone to think of something they assign a spiritual meaning to, and write about a time where the universe spoke to them using those signs and symbols. 

I am going to tell you a story. In a few newsletters back, I wrote that we always know the answers to our own questions. I mean, sometimes we don’t even know what we’re asking for, or if we’re asking for anything. My mom used to say, “sometimes, life makes decisions for us.” And while life is deciding for us, our friends are silently waiting for us to come to our senses. 

I spent my first few weeks in Melbourne looking for signs. Signs that made me feel like I belonged there. I would eye any wall graffiti for words like “home”. I looked for rose petals on the ground. I waited for that feeling of being moved to tears at every street corner. Not knowing if that leap of faith we took was the right one, but not caring because you knew that being moved to tears was truly a gift to experience. 

And to my annoyance, you know what I would find? Bottles of Fernet Branca in front of every seat at the bar I’d take. Some quote about how distance doesn’t affect love, scribbled on a chalkboard outside of a cafe. Tattooed bartenders who moved to Melbourne from Italy serving me cocktails. 

Coincidences, I’d tell myself. It’s all a coincidence. 

So, I  eventually gave up on signs. Maybe I didn’t need them to know I was on the “right” path. Maybe I could just live and be oblivious to the universe speaking to me.

One afternoon, I was sending voice notes back and forth to one of my really good friends that I had met in Rome, who had also just left the city. We, naturally, started talking about the concept of home. The concept of belonging, the things we miss, the feeling of being both settled and unsettled. The permanency of places, and how sometimes, we can’t explain the logic of why we love and feel at home in certain places versus others. 

The things we can’t explain.

I end up telling her something I had only admitted to my best friend. 

“I think that going through a period of “heartbreak” and heatstroke and just being isolated from all of my friends, scared me into thinking - the rest of my life here would feel like this. And that’s why I had to leave.”

Note: I used “ “ around heartbreak because it wasn’t your typical break-up. It was coming to terms with the fact that a certain situation was most likely not going to have a positive outcome, or go anywhere, really. My friend describes it as a run-on sentence without a period, which I think is a pretty accurate description. 

I can’t explain the feeling I had while talking to her. I started to realize that I left a really, really good part of me behind in a city that I thought failed me. I started to wonder if giving up on a city entirely was the right decision after all.

But, the over-analytical Gemini in me thought - well, if something broke your heart - why would you give it the power to break your heart again? 

And you know what’s interesting? Here I am, writing and promoting Failing Gracefully, which, at its core, - is a book on letting ourselves believe, and letting ourselves fall in love again, and again. The journey home.

Anyways, while I was sending her these voice notes, I was getting ready to leave for a pilates class. There was only one key to my Melbourne home, and as I took it out of my pocket to lock the door, I glanced down at it. “Roma, Italy” was engraved on that bright purple key.

“Fuck.” I said aloud to no one. In my matching forest green Alo workout set, I dropped everything, took a photo of that bright purple key, and sent it to her. 

“Gabby, please tell me this is a sign for you.”

“No, Emily. I think it’s a sign for you.”

I end up messaging my two best friends back home:

“Ok, I miss Italy.”

No one was in the least bit surprised. 

“Thank god. I wasn’t going to say anything, because I knew you’d figure it out on your own.”

“I mean, I think we can all agree that Australia was a bit rogue, but we can look at it like a vacation.”

So, I booked a flight back. Then, I changed it to an earlier flight. And then another earlier flight, because - why wait?

These are the moments where I am thankful for my impulsive Aries moon. Chaotic, yes. Irrational, maybe. But I believe in feelings > thoughts, which is why I wrote down “accidental engagements” on my “In” list for 2023.

Well everyone, here we are. Cozy in our bed, happy and hungover from our favourite dirty martini at aperitivo yesterday. Red roses and an almost finished espresso beside me. A half read book about a ballerina who is chasing her dreams is open to page 44, and lays right on top of a bright yellow journal that I bought in Melbourne.

Thank you universe, thank you for bringing me home.

I love you. I love you so much.

Happy New Year everyone.

xo forever,

Emily