Exams and classes are finished, summer has sprouted, and I can feel the approaching proximity of July 9th - a day that has lingered dauntingly in the back of my mind since my return flight back to the US was officially booked. However up until now, with just under a month left in Italy, it hasn't really hit me. I have spent this past week or so amidst painful goodbyes, last hoorahs, and birthdays and am secretly dreading the day where I will wake up in the morning and no longer refer to my apartment on Via Irnerio as home. Parting ways with some of my best friends here has weighed heavily on my heart and a large part of me is still in disbelief that it is almost over. That it is already mid-June and my time here is quickly dwindling.
And yet from these rather melancholy thoughts has sprung the realization that even in its most simplest form, Bologna means more to me than I could have ever imagined. My life here for the past month or so has been rather tranquil. Aside from a week trip to Southern Italy next week, my travel plans have mellowed out and my days and nights have been spent pleasantly in Italy's most underrated city and I couldn't be happier. From lounging leisurely in Giardini Margherita for long afternoons, devoting full days to making hand-made pasta, to laughing and chatting for hours over a dinner that has managed to endure until midnight, I have been soaking up every little ounce of la vita italiana that I possibly can.
And after a bit of a rocky start with my living situation I am finally comfortably situated and feel as though I have been embraced as an integral part of the house. Not only did I have to pick up and move into another apartment midway through the program, but in my new apartment, our bathroom was suddenly struck by the misfortunes that come hand in hand with ancient, rotting pipes. We were left without water for about 2 weeks and without a properly functioning bathroom and shower for a month. 5 days a week our apartment was inhabited by workers who were hired to literally gut out the entirety of our old bathroom and rebuild a new one in its place. The pace of their work was characteristic of the stereotypical conception of the Italian lifestyle but at this point I really can't complain - our new bathroom is beautiful. Not to mention that it gave us a great excuse to throw a big dinner party to celebrate when everything was finally finished (need I mention it probably took an extra week or two to install actual lights in our new bathroom....).
So just as I have found my niche among the locals, just as everything little thing that was once so foreign to me has become as second-natured as waking up in the morning and brushing your teeth, I will have to return to a world that semplicamente, non è così. It just isn't the same. It's a feeling that leaves me rendered with a terrible heart-ache and a burst of excitement all at the same time. I am spinning through a reality of falling in love with a city and the intimate bonds I cherish with the place where I grew up. The place that up until this point in my life has been the sole source from where all of my most precious relationships and memories have been derived. The prospect of ever feeling such a connection to a place so different would have never crossed my mind. And yet I have nonetheless fallen head over heels for Bologna. I have fallen so blindly that despite how much I can't wait to be reunited with everything I left behind, the thought of having to leave is unbearable.
As cliche as it may sound, there is no better way to describe it then bitter sweet. I have since realized that try as I might, no combination of words will ever be sufficient enough to recreate every emotion that has been flooding through my body since the moment I stepped foot on Italian soil. And as sad as it will be to leave, the beauty of this whole experience resides in the fact that it will solely exist in this time and this place. Nothing will ever rival it, nothing will ever change it, and nothing will even begin to compare to how much this city now means to me.
