Masterpieces

Recently I found myself in a deep meditation about achievements in life. Do we really score the goal? Do we cross the final line saying: “yes I’ve made it”?

I felt the need of going outside in the World and figure it out; facing people, asking for an honest answer.

First, I found a friend of mine, a great woman, a strong fighter in life, “a lady with balls.” She said to me that she is always scared about the future and she never believes she will reach the sky. But, meanwhile, she is incredibly confident in her abilities and ready for the next challenge. She confessed me her secret: “ask for help when you need it, ‘cause it’s not a lack of strength, it’s a strength for your lack.” She finally managed to win a high position as a researcher in the University. She is 24. Surprisingly, I felt jealous: not because I would like to swap my life with hers, but because she had a plan, a dream, she fight for it and she achieved. Now she could sleep peacefully at night cause life for three years from now has been already written for her.

Scrolling Facebook pages and friendships, I crashed into another friend, or better, an ex-boyfriend!  He is that type of guy that doesn’t want to run: everything by the right time, even a little bit later on! I heard about him several months ago, I could say almost an year! Last time I talked to him, in between the affection and the anger, I felt great showing to myself that I was doing something, while he was stuck in his bachelor’s life. I was dem wrong. Slowly slowly, he entered a group of engineers that projected a kart model: his dream since I know him. I can lie to myself, but pictures do not. He went through what was his ride and he won the competition. Seconds later other pictures came out: the rest of his life. I was happy for him: cars, girls, friends, parties. But most of all, I was happier for myself; happy cause I made the right choice leaving him: he wouldn’t have changed his life for me in all these years; leaving me crying instead, hoping for the impossible.

I came back home, light on a cigarette and switched on my pc. Blank page, blank me.

Sadly, I feel lost: “For all this time, was I still working on my masterpiece or was I pausing my life finding excuses?”

I finished the cigarette and switched off the laptop.

Days later I am still here, underneath my duvet this time, asking myself the same question. I am scared to face my own life: to resume what I’ve done, achieved, lost. This last year has been a sequence of life proves: from my job situation until my health, from the lack of love until the essence of it, from my victories that turned into losses. I am at that turning point in which you ask to yourself: “and now what?” what am I going to do with my life: not my parent life or my boyfriend life, no, my own life, Isabella life! Am I going for a speech therapist course? Am I moving to the Como Lake? Am I leaving my boyfriend? Am I closing doors with my family? Am I going to write my book finally?

Am I simply going to face life or keep it quite under this duvet?

Answers, answers, answers! A suffocate pressure in my veins. I mean it literally. Recently my heart is beating faster than usual and it’s happening now that my deadline is closer and closer. So quick Isabella: answers.

Masterpieces take time. That’s my excuse. I really want to do something great out of my life. I still don’t know which one is my destiny, my way to happiness. For sure I will not find it under this duvet but I am so tired of everyone ready with answers and solutions that are not me. Too many “bla bla bla ” that are only “lari fari” to me: I want to finally feel it in my soul: I will find my own way, I just need  time to work on my masterpiece and once finish it will be the best of me. Get ready World, I am waking up.

Where is Home?

Where is your home, your place to feel comfortable and in peace? Is it what they say: “home is where your heart is”? I was thinking a lot about this concept recently. I don’t have a real house: no more that one I was growing in, soon neither this lovely apartment at the top of the town. I don’t feel at home anywhere. I feel safe and great in Tamas harms, but it’s not a house, not a place to settle down. My only home now is inside me: I have pictures on the walls of my soul, I have a soft sofa for the sad moments and, as long as I am next to my true love, some warmth from the fireplace of our hearts. So probably, they are right: home is where your heart is. There is no physical building, no rent, no gas and electricity. If all these concepts are true and home is just a way to concretize our feelings, why do I feel like a need a place to call home?
I guess the answer is easy: what makes my home now, my boyfriend and my happiness with him, could disappear in a blink of an eye. In order to have back a part of my life, my family, I have to let my house go. I have to put it on a truck and let it go. Unlikely, I am not ready to lose my first loved home.
My unconscious is showing me the consequences. Few days ago, I made an application form for a job in the Como Lake in Italy: I was thinking it was simply one of my fancy ideas, but now that I think through it, I realise that I picked that place for a reason. As in movies when the true love dies dramatically, the partner find refuge in a peaceful, isolated, nature full filled place. I have the feeling that I picked the lake because I know I will suffer a lot and, as my love and home will be dead, I may need a peaceful refuge to be able to find myself again: to find a new home built on myself and probably for a while with no fireplace.

Men run faster than Time

Time is a constant, it never changes: in an hour there can be 60 minutes only, not one more, not one less. In one day 24 hours only. Time cannot cross speed limits: it’s slow.

Men, on the other hand, can much more. In one day they can born and die, in an hour they can love and hate. Men can run so fast that sometimes neither time can save them.

Thinking about my own experience, I have to admit that I am a runner. I wish I could solve my whole life in less than two months: to figure it out if the man who’s standing by my side is truly the love of my life, to find a way out to make peace with my family, to change my job, to move from the UK, and… why not… to find peace and happiness!

Time tried so many times to call me back to life, to alert me. My own body threaten me so I could listen to the time’s advice: “it’s time to stop and catch up with the time of my life”.

If only I could be able to listen more and run less. The pain I feel inside, that brings me to keep running fast, is nothing else but the consciousness I have that the time of my life is too slow. A lot of people, the closest to my heart, are waiting for me to sort out my life. My boyfriend would like me to decide if I should stay with him or not. My family want me to leave me and find another job possibly back in Italy. My grandparents keep the typical tenderness of who knows life and has been smoothed by it. but even them are hoping for me to go back or at least closer.

The truth is that I would simply stop and let the time showing me the way. But as for God, even my faith in Life is just a little flame that should be a fire instead.

Ready or not, here I come

Ready or not, here I come.
That’s a big truth: it doesn’t matter if you are ready or not, life comes in without knocking the door, asking permission to step in. It doesn’t matter if you are dressed up or emotionally naked, it doesn’t make any change neither if you run away from it; it takes you over. Life comes most of the times as a hurricane and messes all you plans up. I can ensure you that those four letters, this primitive concept as Life is, takes whatever you have as a payment for your mistakes. One of these latest nights I couldn’t sleep at all and I was wondering in my bed until I crashed into my boyfriend. When finally the sun raised up I was still awake and thinking: “why am I so scared of being happy again?” I was next to the love of my life, I was back to health and I had a second chance in life. Suddenly I turn my head to my sleepy boyfriend and I realised it: “whenever I have been happy, Life took the happiness away from me”. But why? Am I a killer, a bad person or a drug dealer? No. Am I an abuser or a dangerous human being? No.
I am simply a young lady that chose her happiness regardless the other’s one. I chose to be free and enjoy deeply what I had without thinking of the consequences or other people feelings. I have been selfish and punished for that. Life took away from me what I loved most and now, even if the pain has gone and the wind made its job blowing away the sense of guilty, I am still in my bed unable to be happy, too scared even to try.
Life doesn’t care about you: life runs and takes what it’s hers. Watch out and be ready then, because if you are not, you will lose other four letters, those ones that everyone looks for in life: l-o-v-e.

It will be better in time

It will be better in time. That’s what they always say: it doesn’t matter how painful is the moment, soon it will be better. I used to believe in it, quite a lot: every time I felt, I manage to raise up again: and day after day, tear after tear, I healed my scars.
Since then the idea that time can cure a love pain or a lost was deeply settle in my soul. No doubts: after each fight with my mum, after a break up, after an illness, everything would have been better in time.
Recently I had to prove hardly this theory: would it be better in time? Would I be able to raise, stand up and be brave? Would I start living my life the way I planned it? Would I ever be the happy me I was once upon a time?
Who was I? When I was just a little girl I asked myself why I see things different from anyone else: I was sensitive at the ultrasounds, I was sure that a “smile-therapy” could heal my sickness, I was betting on losers to win, I kissed a foreigner when I was only at the high school (such a shame at that time). I have always been the black sheep dressed up with a rainbow: I had fear of nothing, I was stubborn and optimist at the same time.
I believed that there is always a good side, always a hope.
I find it hard to believe now. I passed my last few months looking for a light, for some hope, for a reason to get through life. I found unkindness, selfishness, pain. I found another me; but despite my two souls, I felt lost. None of them was me anymore: the innocent positive smiling little princess had to face life and get burned. The strong ice queen destroyed her reign feeling nothing but sadness. They promised me it would have been better in time, but it didn’t happen. The time passed and my hopes flew away with the last storm. I took a plane and I flight back home to find my origins; I found them frozen as I left them when I moved to UK. I found them frozen but in a cold ground. It took time to blow some love on that memories and bring everything to life again, because it didn’t matter how strong my love was, the abyss I create was too deep.
I passed days trying to wake up my relationships and as it failed, I passed my nights crying on my destiny. Where has the love gone?
My heart is broken between my boyfriend and my family; my souls are apart: crashed into two walls to keep the little princess and the ice queen far away from each other.
I create these two “me” to be safe and use one or the other depending on the situation. I guess the solution of all my troubles would be to let them walk hand by hand; to let the true love making magic: my love story should be between the princess and the queen: that’s my love battle, that’s my mission. I have to let my two souls be a unique soul mate; the love of my life is myself. Then and only then, hopefully, it will be better in time.
But the pain I have to go through to reach the goal is so high and deep at the same time. I feel myself ready to fly and on the edge to crash. I know this time it would be me, only me. No family, no friends, no boyfriend. This is me, alone. This time it’s gonna be tuff because I cannot close myself in ice again waiting for my prince. Last time it happened and I will love my hero for the rest of my life for that: he saved me from a frozen building based on my broken heart deeply buried into the iced ground. He gave me hope, love, kindness, himself. That’s why I find so hard to start my journey without him next to me. But if not physically, he will be in me: finding warmth in the little princess arms and fresh wind on the ice queen goodnight kiss. In our dreams we will be side by side.
Who gave me the strength to start this travel, methods apart, has been my family. To them I would like to ensure that my love for them is unlimited, anchored in my heart and ready to sail with me. A life together cannot be deleted only by some life events. I thought that my journey was starting when I moved to UK, but that’s another story, a life ago. Now the true battle is no more to survive in a foreign country and show off how much I am able to sacrifice for my independence. This time is me, leaving my family house, creating my own one, find a way to come back home on my own feet; not anymore hand by hand with mummy and daddy, not anymore convinced by my boyfriend. This time I will do my journey for myself only.
I have to admit that I was on the edge of a river, ready inside and outside to give up on everything: one more day and I would have switched off myself and obeyed to them all.
But the true love I still have for my boyfriend and the unconditionally affection for my family kept my mind together and now I am ready to step back from that river edge and walk away: wandering through life obstacles and finally finding myself. And with each step I make, I will leave behind me a piece of pain to be finally free, when I reach the sun.
Thinking how could I start this journey, I realised that I cannot simply run away from the past: it has to stay inside my bag and be ready for when I need to face it. I cannot say goodbye to my boyfriend, only a “see you soon” in the everyday life. I cannot close doors with my family ‘cause they are part of me, my DNA, my memories. It will be another “see you soon” in everyday life.
They say: “if they love you, they will follow you”. That’s what I asked to who I love: walk with me, on the parallel street so every time I will need your love, I would have just to turn my face and I will see you walking through your life; waiting for the moment we will cross each other ways. There is no more space for what people want from me, but for what I need from people. I have to do it for myself.
If you love me, follow me and it will be better in time.

Bridges

Bridges have been built since the primitive age: they could be “river crossers” or “malty ground avoiders”.
Nowadays, instead, bridges are used to connect cities, to create new routes, to improve the traffic speed.
But. There was once upon a time, when none was BUILDING bridges and nevertheless everyone was talking about it. Many philosophers and poets, artists in general, used the idea of a bridge with a meaning of connection. Bridges were “souls saviours”.
Finally, there was a time in which bridges really were connectors: people used inside bridges as the strongest weapon in the World against unhappiness, cruelty, wars.
The question came easily to my mind: is it possible that in a World full of “old and modern fashion style bridges”, we run out of the “deep strong inside ones”?
Are we seriously using all our energies to build a marble arch with LED lights at the top, instead of creating a little wooden primitive bridge between people?
Hearts bridges don’t need any diamond. Instead, they might need some candles to make the journey comfortable.
Let’s think about how many times we physically cross a bridge with our feet every day and then how many times we try to understand the others and try to find a compromise. Let’s try, just for once, to meet each other on a bridge half way from each other sides. Let’s leave all our fears, prejudices, weapons, tricks on the very end of the bridge. Let’s cross it naked and pure, let’s meet half way and talk.
Definitely, this is the hardest bridge to build. Everyone could put two thousands brick together and call himself an architect. However, how many people can truly be honest, and share a soul bridge instead of breaking it?
Eventually bridges are just bridges; nevertheless, I would love to go back to time, to that “once upon a time” when the easiest thing to do was something that nowadays I cannot do anymore.
From love to love crossing a soul bridge.

LOVE, CAREER AND FAMILY

This morning I was having breakfast with a friend of mine. We both came back in our Country for holidays. She has been six months in Berlin and now she will start a new researching project in UK. As long as we were talking about life’s projects I couldn’t stop myself from asking if I was doing the right thing; if I was following a good project or if I messed it up in name of freedom and love. When I first arrived in UK my ideas were clear: find a good job regarding my studies, settle down, have the luck to meet a great guy and start a family. Then if possible moved back to my lovely, amazing Country. I have to admit that I reached most of them in less than 2 years. I have a good flat, I have some money (or at least more than when I began my adventure). I learnt a lot about life and being independent. I have a good job but still I need to reach the right one for me. I have an amazing boyfriend and to you, dear readers, it could sound a perfect matching. But here, at home, in my little bed with the pictures on the wall, I start wondering how much it cost and still costs me. I gave up on postgraduate courses ‘cause I needed money and I couldn’t coop with the idea of living with my family or another family just to save some cash but ever starting my life. I have a great man next to my side but I lost my parents trust. Apparently, they are too worried and scared of the unknown. The question then is clear: is it fair to let fears affecting our lives? I guess that being scared is natural and extremely human. I guess that for parents is even deeper this feeling. When we were babies they woke up in the middle of the night to check if we were still breathing, later on it was about falling from a bike and suddenly it became a bigger fear day by day: will my little baby be hurt by some bullies or is he going to have a heart broken? Until one day the major fears come real: is my little kid walking down the right lane?
Right now I found myself in the middle of jungle. I walked inside few months ago when I chose to keep my barista job to be able to move in a good area in a great flat in the town centre. Then I chose to share my happiness and my relationship with my parents (bad move probably). Finally I chose to punish myself for the unhappiness of the others, thinking I am the cause.
I spent the last months in this dark sweaty scary painful deep forest. I blame myself for not be able to react; change my safe job for an unsecure, probably less well paid, but better one. I chose a passionate overwhelming love over my parents ideas and values. I betrayed them, I disappointed them, I run too much and too quick.
Still in the unreasonable state of my mind I am in front of a life decision: stay in UK; find a great job; keep my love close to me through the days and nights, the Good and the Bad; save and finish my project.
On the other side: go back to my own country; find a job; rebuilt the trust my parents had on me; hope that my love is going to wait for me; give up on my project.
In both cases I will hurt someone and most of all myself. But I need to find peace within myself as well and it is not possible if I know I made someone else suffering.
As I asked you before: is it fair to let the sense of guilty affecting our choices?
Honestly, dear readers, I don’t know.
They said Love is over anything else. But in one of my previous articles I was asking myself until when Love is Love. Hurting my own parents is it love? Give up on my relationship for someone else peace of mind is it love?
When does it stop the love for myself and start that one for the others?
I feel like I have an unfinished business with both sides. I tried a lot of ways out from this jungle but it’s more like a swamp: the more I try to get out, the more I move, the more I dig my own tomb.
Days and months of thinking and the answer is on my right ankle. Last year I made a tattoo with three leaves of oak tree: symbol if family. That’s my biggest value in life and I promise myself to always fight for that. So I guess the right thing to do for me is not to lose my family. I have to do it for my parents, my grannies and my brothers and sisters. I have to fight until the end of my breath for my family to have the strength of fighting for my own one, one day.

un-lessons about love

Love, love, love. How many books, movies, dramas, songs about that wired feeling that we all want until it makes us crying. Romeo and Juliet, Pretty Woman, Titanic, Love is in the air and all the similar. Love is here, Love is there, Love that makes you feel up and down. Love is everywhere. How does it come that we can love so easily? We love our mum, our boyfriend and even our cat. Then the question is due: is it so easy to love? Is it about caring, attraction, or fear to be alone? These are big question and probably millions of people tried to find out an answer so I am not gonna walk on their same paths.
The more I watch movies, the more I get confused. Everyone can picture love in a different way: consuming, violent, romantic, unreal. The more I listen to songs, the more I fall into them. There is something in Art , that captures us in another place, far away, for few moments. That is what I feel when I write. I admit that my articles are pretty horribly written, but it is not the point. The truth is that they are me, myself, my own soul.
I recently asked myself if I love, if I am in love. I have always thought that the best way to show my care would be to love unconditionally. My family, my boyfriend, my friends. I realized that I spend eight hours sleeping and the rest of the day trying to please them and find time for them. Do you want to know the funny side of the story? I have been stabbed in my heart. The few people I really love decide to fight one against the other calling this war in the name of my own goodness. A war that is consuming me day after day and night after night. So I start thinking if it is still all about Love or simply selfishness. How many battles do we fight in the name of Love? Muslims and extremists do the same nowadays while in the past, Christians and Muslims were the main characters in the Crusades. In many movies the stepmothers fight for their sons, in nature animals kill each other’s to protect their own families.
How long does it last this excuse? Are we still talking About Love?
The power that Love has on us let us making choices that could change our lives forever but inevitably, we cannot run away from them. We can fight in the name of Love but it would be foolish to fight against it.
People will always write about Love, expressing it in millions different ways, shouting from the rooftops, crying in loneliness. Whoever we are, dear readers, we can just admit that we are human beings put in this World to love and feel renew as the wind makes waves alive.

Let’s stop for a second and breathe deeply

Let’s stop for a second and breathe deeply.
Let’s close our eyes and feel it.
Life is all around; as for you as for me. I am sitting on a chair in a massive garden and probably it is quite late because I can see the sun going down burning itself on fire, cuddled by soft clouds. Simply turning my head, I can already see the moon that is always next to us, looking after us, like a mum with her kids. We purely forget that she is there waiting for the night to come and guide us into the dark moments. Surprisingly there is my favourite tree: an oak tree. It looks royal to me with its brownish and goldish leaves but nevertheless still showing off some green to remind me about the summer already gone. I close my eyes although I know I am still thinking too clearly to let myself abandoned. So I will try again for a minute or two. One..two..three…four… five…
How many things you can hear and feel when you switch off: the traffic noises several miles away, a bird leaving the tree letting some leaves falling, my deep breath moving the plastic chair, the crackling from the fireplace, the smell of burgers and hot dogs.. but best of all I can feel that Tamas is thinking of me while cooking our lunch! I am too far away from him to check if it is true and I don’t even want to. I will stay here with the sun touching softly my face, dreaming about Tom’s lovely touch when I am into his arms! My love.

That’s it! A squirrel! He is jumping and stopping and then again jumping and stopping. Surely he is afraid of me. How great could be life if only we would appreciate these little things. Few months ago I was so stressed out because of bills, rent, family business, job and so on that for weeks I forgot how good was to be alive! We cannot run away from our problems, that’s true, we cannot even say that life is easy because it is not. But what it is really true is that the simple fact we are alive is a miracle in itself. We could already be over it: a illness, an accident, even a spermatozoon that couldn’t reach the egg. It could be anything but if you are reading these pages it means that it is not. We are dammit lucky we are alive!
My advice for today? Love you life as it is for the next 24 hours and you will feel alive!

HOLES

“A new day has come”.

A new day, an old story. Today I was talking with a colleague of mine about being positive and strong. About how pointless it is to be negative and how helpful it is to find the good sides of things.

It sounds so easy, but it is not. Life is tuff. It doesn’t matter how much effort we put on things, they are going to follow their course. Destiny exists. We can try to convince ourselves that we can do it, we can change it, we can manage it, but most of the time it overwhelms us. We try to be healthy, no smoking, no drugs, some of us are vegan, but then we have cancers anyway. We try to be polite, friendly, honest, good with everyone, but then they cheat on us. We try to built our own fortune and then everything burns down.

“We have a hole in our pockets, a hole in our shirts, a hole and lots of troubles so when everything has gone we have a hole in our heads. We have a hole in our hearts, a hole in a promise, a hole on the sides of our beds and when everyone leaves life carries on but we missed them like a hole in our heads. Because where we have holes we have holes, but we carry on.”

Life is like that: we go down, deeply and deeply and then we hold our bones and we rise again. It doesn’t matter how or why, we simply want to survive.

We should be sceptical when someone tells us that life is perfect and everything is easy. He is lying. But if someone tells us that everyday is a school day although we know the subject very well, then we should believe in that because that is the greatest part: to climb the mountain and reach the top. The mountains of our lives made us what we are.

None can teach us how to live, that is our adventure.

That’s all About Love