La bella vita

Moving to Italy is not as romantic as it sounds.

I mean, I knew that. They told me that. And I said I understood. Yeah, I know, I said. It's not vacation, it's real life, I said.

Just like you. You, who are reading this. Of course it's not vacation, you'll say. It must be soooo hard for you, living in ITALY.

You'll hit what we call, "the wall," they said, in about three months, give or take a few weeks.

Not me, I said.

You'll find yourself sitting on the living room floor, they said, with your head in your hands, asking yourself, "why did I ever come here?"

No way. I'm a wanderer, a free spirit, a gypsy soul, I said.

But don't leave, they said.

It will get better, they said.

It won't bother me. I've always been independent. I'm used to doing things myself. I'm strong, I said. Stronger than most.

Being here is like being a child again. Simple tasks are new and frustrating. You have to learn everything all over again. You will beat your head against the wall trying to buy gas with a credit card, turn the electricity back on when it goes out once a week, connect the water to your washing machine, or freaking turn on the oven. You're no longer a self-sufficient adult. You're an ignorant foreigner. You can't manage your personal affairs by yourself. And you ask really, really stupid questions.

There will be really high highs and really low lows. It will be an emotional roller coaster, they said.

I'm sitting here on the edge of my bathtub, 10 weeks in, with one shoe on and one shoe off, after having had my most reliable credit card denied at the grocery store for god-knows-what reason, putting some dents and scratches in my rental car and wondering how much that is going to cost me, opening my dishwasher only to find that it took some of the finish off my dishes for lack of enough "dishwasher salt" (what?), learning that I will probably not have internet or the use of my oven until January, having an old man sternly scold me and my dog in Italian on the street for reasons unbeknownst to me, taking freezing cold showers for the last three days, and waking up to a flooded laundry room.

It will get better, they said.

Just hang on, they said.