our one year anniversary

everyone is at their most beautiful when they tell the truth

Ok my friends,

It’s Monday, February 13th. The Eve of Valentine’s Day, which no one celebrates. There’s a glass of red wine and water beside me - because, we are both hydrating and dehydrating at the same time. 

In exciting news, I went to Sephora tonight and bought under-eye masks and a face roller that are both currently sitting in my fridge. I started to do “Pilates” - which, if you know me, is me lying on my yoga mat, listening to Lana Del Ray, scrolling through IG and seeing what everyone I’ve ever dated is currently up to. 

But tonight was different, and I’m proud of myself for admitting that to you. Instead of the routine ex check-up, I wanted to sit down and write.

One year ago, I started writing to you. There was no set publishing goal or number that I ever wanted to reach with this newsletter. I just wanted a space where I could talk, and people (if they chose to do so) would listen. 

From our couch in Toronto, to many couches and bars and wooden beam lined restaurants in Rome, a very brief stint in Melbourne, and now back to the streets of Roma, we’ve been all over the world together. 

Can I be honest with you? I feel like today is my birthday. And I say that, because these newsletters have become diary entries that show almost 52 weeks of chapters and stories, 52 weeks of living, and 52 weeks of growth. 

There have been many full circle moments lately. One in particular is this very moment. Sitting on my friend’s sofa in Rome in my green Alo workout set, a swap for my blue silk mini slip dress that made many appearances over the past year’s newsletters. 

I’m listening to Lana’s Love Song, and I want to write to you about what I’ve learned about love and life since those blue silk dress moments that I could never wrap my head around in May. 

I still don’t know what love is, or what love actually means. And I wonder how many times I’ve told someone I’ve loved them, just because I felt like I should. When I hated a dinner, and said it was the best meal I’ve ever had (this is very unlikely, but you get the point). Or telling someone to message me after running into them, knowing full well I’d never make the effort to see them.

The word authenticity just came to mind. 

“Who are we when we are at our most vulnerable?”

You know what’s funny? I wrote that line in an article about Italian bars, if you can believe it. Well, if you know me, you probably can. 

Authenticity, vulnerability, and our younger selves. There’s a theme to all of it, isn’t there? 

Being called baby, and being told the truth. Blind faith, the belief in yourself, and the belief in something greater than yourself. Asking for help, knowing you don’t have the answers. Knowing that you don’t need them. Creating, creating, creating. Accepting the compliments. 

And accepting the hand that’s reaching out. 

How many people get to see this side of us? 

The stripped down, straight out of the shower version of ourselves. 

And in the spirit of honesty, and in the spirit of being vulnerable and telling the truth, I will tell you a story.

I’ve never been a good FWB. A good friend, yes. A FWB, no. One night? Absolutely. Anything that extends over 2-3 times without any type of emotion involved, I do not excel at. 

I wish I could tell you the story of how I met this person, because that too, is a full circle moment. But there are some things that are meant to stay between me and the vault in my mind.

He left the other night at 4 am, and I sat at my kitchen counter for 30 minutes after. I stared at the couch, and thought about someone else. And I thought about those afternoons of truth telling, lost time, and being swept into the smoke of his cigarettes. Making up for what could have been. 

I felt nothing the other night. He left, and I felt nothing. And that made me sad. 

When I came back to Rome in January, my dad asked me. “Are you sure? Are you sure you want to go back to the place that broke your heart?”

I believe everyone is at their most beautiful when they tell the truth.

So, I’m going to be honest with you all. I would let this city break my heart one million times over, if it meant that I had a chance to feel something. Because when we feel, we create. And when we create, we grow. 

Was I blurring the desire to connect with the desire to feel something?

I tell my best friend this, and he tells me:

Maybe he was a distraction. You gravitate towards Rome for a reason. Think about that instead.

He knows a Gemini mind well enough to know the only way to interrupt overthinking is to suggest a new topic all together.

So, as I listen to Love Song, I want to write a toast to one year of growth, one year of creativity, one year of flux, and one year of love.

First, to our friendships. To our chosen family members, who love us. Not because science or biology said they have to, but because there was some universal force that led us into each other’s lives for a reason. To the ones that remember the small things, the ones that remind of who you are and who you’re going to become, and the ones who fall when we fall - no matter where either of you are located in the world.

Second, to our lovers. To our exes, to our almosts, to the ones that got away. To the ones we currently love, and the ones we’ll forever love. We all felt something, didn’t we? We were lucky. Lucky to feel that thing. That thing that is too exhausting to explain. That we can spend weeks, months, and years mulling over. But anything else I write, or anything else I will say would do an injustice to the infinity we experienced inside a realm of 4 walls.

Thirdly, to art. The only language that we can use to explain those infinities.

And, finally, to ourselves. To the brave little girl who believed in fairies for a lot longer than she’d be willing to admit, the one who just wanted to pick tomatoes and parsley in her Nonno’s garden. The one with glasses and butterflies all over her t-shirt.  The one who never got tired of letting someone carry her up the stairs. 

You’d be proud.

Here’s to another year. Life is beautiful. 

And I’m in love with you.

Emily