I’ve started this post so many times in my mind, on Instagram posts, on the train back… But I never managed to finish it properly.
I often talk about heartbreak, anxiety and pain and yet most of the people know me as solidly positive and content person. Most of them also have trouble accepting the fact that on the inside, I do struggle with sadness, which is (most of the times) not really connected to anything that happens around me, it’s just THERE. I am also not one to fall in love so often that would justify my (many) posts, yet heartbreak is not limited to love interests and boys alone. It’s a feeling reserved for any emotional loss and those were not rare this year. What I tried to say is, I do enjoy life and every emotion on the spectrum and when sad, I like to express it, especially in writing.
I know most of my (longer) posts often read as some sort of sob story, portraying me as a cry baby, a brooding semi-adult, trying to make the world feel bad for me, which is never actually the case.
I thought Rome will finally make me write again. I thought here, I will finally let that one last cry out and move on. I thought the inspiration will flood in and transform everything into words, again. I was looking forward to finally having this chapter closed and published. I get so many (nice) nudges about my blog and its inactivity. Trust me, I know. I want to, but it’s not in me, yet. But it wasn’t so. Rome gave me something else this time. It gave me a way out, an ESCAPE from reality.
Rome always fills me with such positive energy, but what I’ve never talked about before, is how it also gives me major anxiety. The good, challenging kind, but still, ANXIETY. In my many travels here, the city was the saviour, the harbour, but also a proper CHALLENGE. Coming here alone, I was always faced with many obstacles. This time, those obstacles kept my mind away from deeper issues that I was harvesting at home. The ones preventing me from writing, yes.
And it payed off. Granted, I’ll have to face the same music at home, but being here, I chose to work on other things. Like eating out alone in proper restaurants, drinking out, alone, not having a whole travel itinerary made out or perhaps doing professional photoshoots, with strangers. You know, all the usual things I used to avoid, because MAJOR anxiety.
So with this part of the journey coming to an end, I feel… CONTENT and RELIEVED. As always, Rome filled me with so much positive energy, but this time, it gave me COURAGE too. Courage to just be, without any contemplations, without asking for permission. Without hiding. Everybody needs an escape, right? I’m just glad mine is this gorgeous city, only a train ride away.
