Over the past week or so, a friend and I have been having an ongoing email conversation abut a whole lot of nothing, anything, and everything. We come from vastly different walks of life and at one point, we started chatting about and comparing them. I asked what it was like to live and grow up in the same place and he answered. But it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to hear. Granted, some of that is also cultural so that does account for some of the differences.
You watch TV shows or read books about people who grow up in the same house they were brought home to, go to school and have the same classes with the same friends, etc. For me, anything even remotely like that is hard to imagine. The longest I’ve ever lived anywhere in one place was about 6 years, before my dad joined the Army. I haven’t stopped moving ever since.
So when I got some of the answers I did to my, “So what’s it like?” question, it really made me stop and think for a bit. He pointed out that everyone goes through some changes of sorts throughout life. Granted, they may not be as dramatic as being hauled all over the world but still, life isn’t always as romanticized as we see on TV. (Imagine that, huh?) He pointed out that you do still change schools, people still grow into their own, friendships evolve, etc. Life isn’t stagnant, not by a long shot. Not the answer I was expecting at all…not that I even knew what I was looking for, really. I just know that wasn’t it.
In turn, I kind of tried explaining what it was like living the life of a professional nomad. I quickly realized that it really is simply complicated and that I take a lot of things that come with the territory for granted. Things like my ability to go with the flow, make friends easily, the ability to take the bad with the good, and more.
I’ve lived in my fair share of places and when I tell people about some of them, a lot of times people are jealous. Hawaii and Italy are usually the ones that seem to garner most jealousy and it’s hard for me to understand why sometimes. I tend to forget that to most, living somewhere tropical or in Europe are only dreams and rarely come true. It’s hard to remind myself that I’ve been lucky, at least on paper.
But my friend dug a little deeper and I had to admit that I definitely wasn’t a fan of living in Hawaii and so far, I’m not a fan of living here in Italy. I mean sure, both places definitely have their upsides but they definitely have their downs. (I won’t go through the whole litany of reasons why Hawaii and Italy (so far) have both disappointed because it’s irrelevant.) After listening to my life, my friend thought about it then he pointed out something I’d overlooked.
After 3 of the worst years I’d experienced, we moved to Germany where I experienced 3 of the best years of my life. (As in, I’d actually go back and relive HS, as painful as it was at times, awesome.) So maybe in order to have those awesome experiences occasionally, you have to take the bad to get the good. Or in other words, maybe I appreciated life in Heidelberg all the more because of the rough time I had in Wahiawa. Which means that there might, just might, be something worth looking forward to about living in Naples after all.
Okey dokey then…
Tomorrow I am going to get my friend Allie and we’re going to go walk the Italian grocery stores and then Thursday we’re going to the Island of Procida and making pizza, woo! 
