Our relationship has always been like one of those stereotypical toxic love stories: I miss you with all my heart when I'm away, but when I get to see the reality of being in your arms, I want to run to my grown-up, maybe way-too-detatched, new North European home.
Why is it so hard to blend in the country I was born in? Since I had the right to vote, never once my choice was reflective of the rest of the people, my people. Not my interests, nor my ambitions, nor my values are shared by the majority of my fellow citizens. So I had to leave.
I'm still hurting though. I may be more of a fit where I am now, but I'm far from integrated; I'm in a gray area in the middle. And while leaving was the good, the only choice for me (and for so many of my friends), I'm still feeling a bit guilty for selfishly leaving without making things better for those who stay.
I try, though; I still vote in every election, I read the news, I promote my country as much as I can. After flying home to vote, this March, my father said "I thought you would be giving up!", to which I said "this is the last chance".
And yet here we are again. I voted, and yet there's no government. I read the programs, and yet the discussion is now about things that were never in the program. Scary things. Are we bailing out of Europe? The Europe that makes me feel at ease wherever I go, that allowed me to work abroad, to love abroad?
I'm tired of starting discussions online with people I don't know, trying to let them realize, through pages on Wikipedia or links to our Constitution, that many things they are told are lies. I'm tired of seeing that facts don't change their blind beliefs.
But most of all, I'm tired of watching the lack of care that pervades so many Italians. And at some point I think "You know what? You live there. I'm getting all frustrated for a place I may never live in anymore. What do I care?"
Maybe it's the immediate connection I have when I meet other Italians; maybe it's the food; maybe it's my family and the friends that are still there. But I do want to feel proud of my roots, once again. I don't want to be on the receiving end of a truthful joke. I want Italy to show that it's up to its founders, its poets, its discoverers.
I want Italians to be up to that.
