Lauren’s Beans

We’ve got 3 saturdays, 3 sundays, 3 mondays, 3 tuesdays, 2 wednesdays, 2 tuesdays, 2 thursdays and 2 fridays to go until we move back to the United States of America onto the North American continent and away from Europe, Italy and Vicenza.  Which after more than 2 years is a little weird.  It’s like coming into the last week of college or highschool all over again.  

Goodbyes are always hard.  I usually deal with them by practically ignoring them.  I say goodbye and I say I’ll miss you but, I’ve never been good at the teary or prolonged part and it just seems somehow less final to me to just say a simple goodbye and go.  That’s me. I have trouble feeling really sorry at the goodbye because somehow to  me it seems like a negation of the relationship itself.  I figure that friendships are precious and no matter how short or long they last because of the circumstances of life they are still beautiful things.  That in a way the time itself, the time that you had, is marred by long goodbyes that seem to show a need to say that it was sure that the relationship would stay the same forever. It is that way for most relationships and then for those that are most important you will do all you can to see them again to continue to be apart of their life so when you say goodbye it is always certain that it is just for a time. That is my rationale at least for my own behaviour although really it is probably just a way to let myself follow my own inclinations …..

I have found that my ideas of this run counter to the culture here in Italy.  I do not feel just in assuming either that things or people will remain unchanged or that any particular change is final.  What I have found here is that people assume constancy, believe in the possiblity of immutablity …. and tend to feel that to be transient is in a way to be a traitor.  So it’s hard to make friendships because they know that as a foriegner you will probably leave someday. Even harder in a way are those who do allow you to be friends that you eventually do have to say goodbye to.  

We’ve been saying goodbye for the last three weeks to different sets of people and really it’s hard …. mostly for me it is hard to watch their faces get a little harder, like their eyes are saying “You see! You are leaving.  I shouldn’t have trusted you because now I have to say goodbye, better not to have been friends and not have to say goodbye in this way.” Then their lips say: “Allora Arrivederci! perchè voi partite, vero? Tornate agli Stati Uniti per sempre.” (So Till we see eachother again! Because you guys are leaving, right? Your going back to the United States forever.) At that point watching their eyes and listening to their words I feel truly sad.  Not because I’m convinced that we will never come back to Italy.  In fact I am rather more convinced that anything is possible.  But to watch them feel hurt because I couldn’t stay for a life time hurts.  At the same time it makes me want to protest….