Goodbyes

Tomorrow some good friends leave Rome for good, returning home to Brooklyn after a year here spent researching, living and enjoying life alla Romana. Jennifer and I met on the Expats in Italy website - an excellent source for those looking to move to Italy. They don't beat around the bush on that site and frequent posters tell you like it is - the good and the bad. Jennifer wrote a post about neighborhoods and then about schools which I responded to and somehow we just clicked electronically. In the end her and her husband, David and their two children ended up living about a 10 minute walk away from us and their oldest child, Lee, went to the same school as Giulia and Paloma. We became fast and very good friends.

In our business we say lots of hellos and lots of goodbyes - so many people in and out of our lives that we lose track of the time. Someone might have stayed with us several years ago and to us it seems that we just saw them - their familiar face just one of so many familiar faces. Our lives are filled with many other more transient lives - in the international community many people are just here for a few years and then they are gone. Some are in Rome simply to experience Italy for a brief time - a sojourn from their "real" lives back home.

We've lived here almost 10 years, birthed 3 children, established two businesses - we're here for the long haul. Yet even that long haul has to give in every once in a while to our restless souls - next year will be our own, albeit temporary, goodbye to Rome. After the year, we'll be back though - already thinking of starting an agriturismo, but more on that later. We try to stay present, but there's always that one foot cautiously dipping and feeling the waters of the future.