wherever you go, there you are

it's tuesday, it's raining, and it's time to get everything we've ever wanted

My beautiful friends ♥️

Has it been a while? I feel like it has - since I go through sporadic phases of sending out newsletters every time I have a story to tell.

I will attribute not having a story tell to two things -  I completely missed Sunday, because I had my best friend’s wedding Saturday night and I was in no commission to do anything besides eat ice cubes and frozen blueberries and feel sorry for myself. And, I am not in my usual element of running around Rome in slip dresses causing problems at 2 pm.

I am sitting on my sister’s couch, Uber-eatsing chips and eating carrots and tzatzki. One of me and my sister (my sister and I’s lol) toxic traits is that we will find any reason to Uber eats something past 9 pm. I take advantage every time I’m back in Toronto use Uber Eats, since ordering online in Italy stresses me out. I think every delivery driver has yelled at me for never putting down my name correctly or my apartment address. Tbh, everyone is always yelling at me for doing something wrong in Italy, so. 

I had this fear of coming home. And it took me sitting on my couch, waiting for my chips to arrive, to figure out what that fear exactly was. And the first thing I said to myself was - I’m scared of becoming who I used to be.

I was convinced that as soon as I stepped onto the tarmac at Pearson airport - I would morph into this 2018 version of myself. Which is ridiculous, since I’ve only been going for 2 months and not 4 years. But it was this idea of “coming home” that made me think I suddenly was going to turn back into this girl who felt like she had to conform into what everyone else wanted her to be. 

Do you feel that way when you visit home? I feel like we all must. We finally leave, we finally become free, and then we’re forced to go back into the place that raised us to be anything but free - and try to convince everyone that we can belong here, and we can also belong there. 

Well, what I have now realized - along with how much I missed having bags of chips delivered to my door - is that when you change, everything else seems to change along with it. The way you see others, the way you work, what you work on, the way you value time, and the way you value yourself. 

“Wherever you go, there you are.” A psychic said this to me once. And at first I thought - oh, she must think I’m running away from something. And now I’m realizing, that wherever you go, there you are - is actually something so beautiful. Whoever you’ve become, will always be there. Whoever you loved, whatever you loved, whatever you’ve felt and whatever you’ve created, will always be there too.

And yes, everything you run from will always catch up to you - and more often then not, beat you to wherever you want to go. 

But why do we always think we’re not worthy of what we want? Or who we love? Or who loves us? I saw someone’s story on Instagram that said something along the lines of “Isn’t it crazy how it takes one small self-sabotaging thought to stop you from living the life of your dreams?” I thought about the times where I stopped writing because people told me I couldn’t make it into a career. Or that freelancing was too hard maintain and I should just get a 9-5. Or when I told an old friend I wanted to move to Italy, his first response was “What are you running away from?”

I think about the limitations we put on ourselves as a society. And the point of this newsletter was to not preach to everyone about how we should all reach for the stars etc etc etc. But the point of it was to tell you to not be scared to change. To not be scared of who you want to become.

I also just realized I turn 29 in a week today. I think one of my favourite lessons I’ve learned this year is the combination of listening to myself, and letting destiny take over when it needs to. I’ve always believed we already know the answers to our own questions. But I think it’s easy to become scared of what we think we’ll never become, and I think it’s even easier to stop believing in ourselves.

Anyways. I wanted to tell you that I believe in you. And we can get everything we’ve never dreamed of. You just have to believe it.

I love you so much!

Ps. Rome adventures will start again next week. And I just have a feeling they’re going to be better than ever.

Pps. We finally got a Roman apartment!

Ppps. You can buy Failing Gracefully here :,)

Pppps. I’m working on both the paperback and hardcover version. Will update everyone when it’s ready. But I hope you loved the e-book so far. ♥️