Who needs an Italian holiday when you are exactly where you wanted to be?
In Melbourne I didn't have to choose between a beautiful existence and a full life
Some articles aren’t good for my high blood pressure. Especially those written by ‘my people’ (not the nerdy goths, I meant the migrants) about the idyllic life they are living in Italy after dreaming about La Dolce Vita all their lives.
I cannot unsee the ugly moments of living in Italy.
Please, enjoy slow-living. I’ll be over here, marinating on how most Italian systems are slow and inefficient because all the educated minds that could have made a positive change have taken their degrees abroad.
Please, film more Tiktak of hot Italian men, trust that they are still living at home because most houses have become Airbnb’s or are unaffordable.
Please, tell us about the sense of community in small towns. Did you also notice how young people either left or worked honest but unimpactful factory jobs?
Please, show us how you renovated a Є1 house in the most picturesque isolated village. Don’t ask why the town is dying.
Deep breath. Calm down Barbs.
Can we get a perspective other than ‘Eat Pray Love’?
Sure, there are articles like this from
out there, but the algorithm gods prefer more romantic ones, such as this one from .She put her decision to move to Italy down to choosing between a beautiful existence and a full life. In Amsterdam, she had a full life, but now she was chasing beauty, and to her, Italy’s intrinsic beauty was something one consumed constantly, just like breathing. As she moved to Italy herself, she noticed that not everyone seemed aware of this beauty, or cared.
I am one of those people, and I got very passionate about it on Notes:
Italy looked beautiful on a Tiktak with French music in the background. But when you were the one taking the shot, then you knew how many un-beautiful moments surrounded it.
I could call them ‘ugly’, but bear with me, I am trying to make a point.
I only ever took photos of my hometown to show my internet friends. I knew they would be amazed by the shadow of mountains plunging into the dark blue lake. Then I’d list all the un-beautiful moments of living in Italy. Despite my best efforts, nobody ever seemed to care. How ironic.
Thanks to Windows’ backgrounds, I was seeing photos of my hometown almost daily, at work. My colleagues kept asking if I missed my beautiful home. And I kept saying no, I didn’t.
Do I need to choose between a beautiful existence and a full life?
Turns out, beauty wasn’t necessarily the kind that got likes on Instagram, and what constituted a full life was entirely personal. I just wanted to find a job and explore my adulting self without the limits of what was expected of me back at home.
I didn’t expect to get there between bird attacks and leeches, but here we are.
The anonymity of living in a big city was freeing, and employment, even a temporary one, was grounding. Plus, I had access to theatres, shops, museums and all sorts of cuisine. Try that in the Tuscan countryside!
As I entered the healthcare world, I felt fulfilled having a higher purpose and sharing my workplace’s ethos. I doubt I’d have added value to society if I stayed to work in hospitality for the summer, as the employment agency dude suggested. On the downside, Melbourne didn’t lend itself to the familiar convivial moments of beauty. When I got here, friendships were already formed, and city people weren’t spontaneous. There were no social happy hour shots in my camera roll. But the ever-changing sky turned into a different watercolour painting at dawn and sunset. The sun reflected on skyscrapers in every direction. A treasure chest of sparkly gems. And at night, every apartment window lit up, becoming my very own constellations.
Maybe the ideal place to live wasn’t about how it looked or how busy your calendar was, but how it made you feel. Groundbreaking, I know!
Melbourne asks you to make difficult choices.
Melbourne was unlike any other city I’ve been in. It didn’t hand you a full life on a platter. It asked you to build it out of contradiction, caffeine, and imagination.
A split personality! It must be a Scorpio city.1
Someone on this platform mentioned ‘microdosing discomfort’, and that would be an accurate definition for my daily life. But I had stories to tell and jokes to make about the most mundane things.
Was it hot? Was it cold? Was it raining with the sun? Was the fire warning level Extreme? Yes, to all. Good luck packing!
During swooping season, Melbourne made you choose: walking on this side of the road, where the birds have nested in the trees and attack pedestrians, or on the other side, with the fentanyl gang?
During footy season, there were even more difficult choices, such as: which NFL team do you go for?
Headsup: ‘None’ was almost as bad an answer as ‘What’s NFL’.
Upon reflection, there was no need to pick: beauty and meaning weren’t opposites. When I was in Italy, I dreamt of being somewhere else, and when I arrived in Melbourne, I felt I had landed exactly where I’d always wanted to be.
Directly from the archives, please enjoy this authentic photographic evidence dated back to 2015, when these events took place:
Unfortunately, it is not a Scorpio city according to the experts. It’s a Virgo. https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Melbourne_(Australia)
This was spicy and I really liked it! I felt your annoyance.
This is a great line too: "It asked you to build it out of contradiction, caffeine, and imagination."
Very true in my experience.
I'm glad you found your happy place. Clearly Italy wasn't it!