La dolce vita

It’s that time again. I have 3 months and less than 2 weeks left in this beautiful city. It’s weird. I was taking a walk across the arno, somewhere, recently, when it suddenly occurred to me how much I’m going to miss living here. It suddenly dawned on me that this place has become home. After long weeks away traveling, I find the only place I want to be is in my bed in my bedroom, here.

And of course, I’m always prematurely sad by the thought of leaving anywhere I’ve grown accustomed to. The time has come again. We were sitting outside the Old Stove, this bar, actually this bar that we had discovered when we had first arrived in the city over six months ago. We never go there anymore because we’ve discovered other places, but somehow on this Wednesday, after an entire day in the Palazzo Vecchio successful completing an EU simulation, we ended up there. The weather was almost as warm as it had been when we arrived last summer, and I thought, it’s going to be so weird when I’m sitting in some other bar on the other side in a few months. And how much I’m going to yearn for this city, these people. Because regardless of everything we have been through-at each other’s throats, driving one another crazy-they’re pretty much my family by now. When this ride we’re on ends, after we part, even if I never cross paths with some of them again, we had this time-now, here. And fuck, it was one amazing ride.

As I’m writing this, my future’s being decided. Do I deserve this fellowship? I don’t know. Compared to the people currently in the running, I’m probably grossly underqualified. But then again, I always suffer from underestimation and lack of assertiveness. Mental note: must work on that.

But if I got it, well. I can’t believe I was even considered, so it was an honor sir, nonetheless.