Anno Nuovo, Vita Nuova

...which in Italian means "New Year, New Life"... it's amazing how things you thought of as "established" can change in a matter of seconds: a word not said, a moment of carelessness is enough to irreparably end a three-year friendship.

OK, a bit of background, I can just imagine the puzzled look on your face. First of all, who am I? Basically... nobody! I guess I am someone for my now globe-scattered family... and in my own mind, but outside that I am virtually invisible, and I don't mind. Why, then, start a blog? I reckon it's my need, sometimes, to just throw thoughts into the Universe, in the hope to make sense out of them, clear my mind, analyse options and possibilities.

My life so far has been eventful… in bouts. I was born in Italy, happy childhood, loving family. Can’t complain, really. Loved going to school.

Then, between age 11 and 21 things have started going downhill for a while. My father got sick, we didn’t know what it was. He went through a plethora of examinations and tests and nothing would come up.

In between all this, at age 16 I decided two things: that I would become a translator and that I would move to Australia.

Finally, it turned out that my father’s illness was all in his head: he was affected by paranoid schizophrenia.
He jumped from the building where he was working, eight months after my cousin, aged 20, had died of a hepatitis-A-infected blood transfusion (and that was what had actually already killed my father, way before he hit the pavement head first).

I was angry for many years, but I think I got over it, eventually. I came to the conclusion that it was not his fault. Actually, I believe it was not really my father who jumped from the top of that building. It was a completely different person, because he was not himself. Therefore, it had to be someone else. Maybe, if I repeat it to myself another gazillion times, I will really convince myself... OK, sometimes I still have some spurts of bitterness... so there.

Anyway, just after my father’s death, I got my diploma as a translator: goal number one was achieved.
A few years of glum, suffering, struggling ensued. My life on hold, working, working, working to help Mum (and I don't regret it or am complaining about it).

It was a trip to America that saved me, I think. At the beginning, though, I was happily spiralling down a rather different kind of trip: an “I can’t do it” trip. Then, I don’t know how or why, a light went up in my brain and I realised I was making a fundamental mistake: I kept on saying I couldn’t go to America… but I wasn’t even trying. I wasn’t even looking at my bank account to see if I could do it.
It was a revelation: I was risking becoming like my father, who gave up his dreams for a mistaken sense of duty, and I bet that was what drove him down March Hare Road.

So I finally checked my bank account and, lo and behold… the money I needed was right there! Who would have thought?!

I went to Austin, Texas, had loads of fun, came back and thought… if I did this, I can move to Australia, too!

Another few years of uneventful work work work followed, until I had enough money to finally go visit Australia… and find out if I was a March Hare, too, or if there was really something there for me.

There was. Took me three more years of hard work and patience and biting the bullet, trying to smell a hint of Sydney between the smoggy particles of Milan's air, but I made it: goal number two was achieved. And here I am.

I’ve been in Australia for more than three years, now, I have a good job that I love (although I’m not translating anymore... guess translation fulfilled its purpose in getting me here), I live on my own (impossible dream in Italy), I might be able to actually buy a home within this year… I’ve made and lost friends, the most recent on New Years’ Eve… and here we come full circle.

As I was saying, it’s amazing how things can change in a second, after months, years of “established routine”… people who were there are gone in a second, death, sea change, words said, or in this case, a word of consideration that was not said.

Makes you think “what is a friend, really?” What makes the difference between an acquaintance and a friend? Is a friend a real friend if she dumps you on New Year’s Eve, without so much as a word of apology, after you have paid for her dinner because she is constantly broke, to sleep with a man she barely knows? Or is that just an acquaintance? Is this a kind of “friend” I want to have around in my life? Is this kind of behaviour enough to end a friendship?

The jury is still deliberating.