I have not written for several reasons. The biggest one is probably that the entire reason that I started this has not exactly come about as I expected. Our move has grown me as a person but not in the cultured and sophisticated way I thought it would. I had imagined me throwing a wrap across my shoulders as I sipped daintily on an espresso holding on to my daughter's hand as we wheeled through the airport in Paris for a long weekend away. What I learned is that Europe is an expensive & frustrating place. Some people around me have seemingly jumped right into the fray. Israel and I have found that with our family dynamics it is not as simple as it seemed in the United States when we started this journey.
Have you found ever yourself with something that looks good on paper? That is what Israel and I call some of our ideas that we later realize were not quite so smart or that maybe we have not investigated all the variables. Europe has proved to be good on paper for the Figueroas but in real life, not so much.
I have always felt myself to be a bit detached from my family. I was always the loose cannon, the hippy. Everyone stayed in Georgia while I lived elsewhere. I have sipped Mai-Tais while living in Hawaii, ate barbecue in Austin, Texas, & even taken my daughter for her annual Santa visit to Macy's in New York City. I obliviously felt that I was the perfect candidate for backpacking across Europe. Until I got to Naples.
Naples has set everything I ever knew about myself on its ear. It has taken a few months for me to get to a point where I could admit what I am about to say to anyone except for my immediate family but here it goes. I hate Europe, in particular Naples, but Europe overall. I hate the toilets, I hate the fact that I can't leave my windows open in my now air conditioner-less apartment since they burn garbage at night and the smoke burns my throat. I hate living with wardrobes....
How do you decorate with that? I hate that going anywhere in Naples requires viewing vast amounts of garbage lining the streets and an innate directional compass as GPS fail half the time to find places where there are no addresses. I know that some of my fellow Americans here have fallen in love but to me, Naples is a stinking disgusting place. I miss the United States. I want to go home to the commercialism and bigger is better attitude where we work out butt off to an early grave. I miss not having to be embarassed or clucked at if my children want a box of macaroni-and-cheese. We try to eat homemade most of the time but every now and then either my schedule or the children's taste request ready-made. The funny thing is that I used to be the scoffer, the clucker and that is what is at the heart of my lapse in writing on this blog. I have been humbled. I have learned things about myself that I never knew to be true and for that I can thank Naples.
Because of that, and due to Italian privacy laws that prevent Italians from being photographed without written permission, I have decided to change up the blog to be more about our general life. I am afraid that if you waited around to see amazing European sights it would take a considerably longer time between posts. I am going to chronicle interesting tidbits in our life. It could be a recipe, a funny story, my unending search for decent home decor, or even a rant or two. There will even be European sights in here from time to time. I hope that this becomes a place where I can come and let people know tricks I've learned, especially military spouses, and vent if needed. I will do my best to stay current and have challenged myself to write at least once a week at first, increasing it as I go.
It is strange the whens and whys and wheres that cause you to grow. I am going to embrace this new me and move forward. Thanks for listening.
