Once you're in it, you're in it

La Cala, Palermo

Last year, when I had just arrived in Palermo and I was looking for an apartment, I was feeling rather stressed, and I spoke with my friend. In a way that I can’t remember exactly how, she gave me a piece of wisdom that I am only now beginning to understand. She said something like: “It’s never all together. Just when you think it’s all together, the unexpected happens.”

I’ve been back in Palermo for almost two weeks now. I am still organizing: my apartment, my life. I had this idea that I could come in, unpack, and be settled in right away. That everything would be in place. But I don’t think that’s how it really works. I don’t think it will all ever be completely put away.

For the past years, I’ve been living in places only for a short time. Never really settling in. I could drop in and take myself right back out. I’ve given things away, left them behind. Whatever I had to do to get on a plane and start again. I only had to take care of myself.

I had been wandering around the world, waiting for a place to capture my spirit and beg me to stay. But that’s not how that works, either.

I realized that it would be up to me to decide where I wanted to be. It would be up to me to make it happen.

And it is amazing, how once you’ve made that one choice, that decision and said it out loud: “Yes, I will stay here;” you are already committed. You grow roots first from your mind, then your heart, and finally your feet as you are so tethered to the earth of this island. And this place, it reaches out and grabs ahold of you, too. Now, you take care of each other.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I have realized through my friend’s advice that I don’t need to worry about that. I just have to see what each day brings. I am learning to live with the little things. The little things that I can’t predict, and that I can’t change. No matter where you live, there are the little things, and since I must live somewhere, I am glad it’s here. For years, I was searching for the place to call home. And now, I’m here.

I am starting again. And this time, I’m all in.

love,

greer