WHAT A STRANGE LITTLE LIFE I HAVE.

So I am back in Rome.

Got in the other day, and it was really like coming back to real life. I guess I really do live here now.

My vacuum cleaner is broken. I have bills to pay, I need to resign my lease, I start work on Monday. Back to life. Yuck.

Not that this life is all that bad at all.

Got a new roommate. She’s a Russian. Her name is Julia. She lived in Russia for her first 11 years and then in Santa Cruz. Just my luck, a Russian surfer chick. She's ok- not spectacular, (she aint no Penelope) but I think she's gonna be fine. She seems nice enough, and whatever- you know?

Anyway.

It's kinda weird to be back. Now that I know I am leaving, in December, and probably not coming back for a while- I feel weird.

I really don’t want to tell my friends. It took me so long to get them to open up, and now I’m just gonna bail on them? Shit. I mean, sure I can come back and visit… but I feel like a traitor. Like by planning to leave I am breaking some sacred ex-pat code.

This is of course a bit melodramatic… but I do feel this way somewhat…

Anyway- tonight is Notte Bianca. I was here for this last year. Amazing that I am starting to write about things a year later, and still in Rome. Actually come to think of it, I’ve been blogging for over a year, oh and yes, I’ve also been in Rome for a year now (not consecutively of course) but I first came here over a year ago.

What a strange little life I have.

This is from a blog I wrote almost exactly a year ago today:

“I want to be here- I like this life- I want to get paid to write and live in Rome. I want to learn to speak Italian and I want to be an ex pat. I want to be away from all the things that I hate in America- I want to learn to appreciate America again.
I want to live in Rome. And take weekend trips to sienna and Tuscany and I don’t know- everywhere. I want to do it.
I can- I mean- I think I can.
What the fuck? For so long I have come up with excuses- not to act, not to direct, not to do any of the things I want to do- no more.
I want to change my life.
And I’m the only one that can do that.”

That’s the great part about blogging- you can always go back and look thru. I mean I have really come full circle from that. For one thing I live in Rome, I have gone to Tuscany and I am learning to speak Italian and I am an ex-pat… and dare I say it, I have even begun to appreciate America again. (gasp!)

But more than that I have taken the reigns of my life and owned them, taken responsibility for them. And it’s pretty fucking cool. I wish I could stay in rome, but financially it just isn’t happening here.

So I guess that means Its time to come home.

A few more months and then it’s me and lil ol America…. It’s gonna be good. But these days, it’s always good. In fact it’s been this good for over a year now… wow.