My first morning coffee is one of the sweetest ones I have had in the last 8 years.

Last night, when I went to sleep, during the routine I usually stick at the week days – saying goodnight to Caramello and heading him out, cleaning off the make-up, shower and goodnight call to Mister – I skipped a step: I didn’t set my alarm on. I didn’t forget to do that, just there was no need to do so. I woke up when my body felt I had slept enough, when the sun was already up in the sky and people were already getting in and out from the shops downstairs.

I let Caramello getting in – who said me good morning running in circle as he does every time he is happy – and I put the moka on the fire. A few minutes later, the smell of coffee was all around in the flat and the aroma started waking all my senses up. I poured the hot fluid in my favorite mug and I breathed all the scent, closing my eyes for a while, and then I started sipping it slowly, comfortably seated on my sofa: the window was open to regenerate the air and let the warmth and the sunlight come in.

I smiled. I smiled because during the last year I have pictured this situation in my head every single morning while I shut the door behind my shoulders.

But today this is real and all the burden I have borne in those days is being slowly replaced by a lightness sensation.

Now I am where I want to be and I feel as I am the owner of my time. It is a strange feeling, almost new to me, the one to have loads of spare time: my mind is overwhelmed by so many thoughts and plans that I feel crippled, in the mercy of it.

The last to days have been so heavy, emotionally tiring, and shattered my brain more than a full day of hard job. Saying goodbye, either for a while or forever, is not easy at all, not even when it is the first step toward what you want more. Clearing the desk out, emptying all the drawers, gifting things to others make you feel lost and lose the view of your commitment for a while.

Even when you truly need a change – both mentally and physically necessary – keeping walking the on same route without a due date makes you feel safe; the routine becomes a blanket, sometimes prickly and oppressive, but it keeps you warm and, apparently, makes you feel comfortable, relieves you from asking yourself thorny questions in front of a mirror. It gives you the illusion that all is peaceful.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility.

 

Freud

Peaceful as some of the gazes I have met in the last days – while the news run inexorably along the corridors – followed by encouraging smiles. Watery and wide eyes. Some were full of surprise, some worried, and a few ones hid some sort of bitterness, similar to a reproach. I have received comforting smiles and warm hugs; I have been cuddled by the real friendship and mishandled by who was in the position to do so, until yesterday.

“Life is just one” has been the most beautiful sentence I have been said. And this is such a cliché that we often forget about the truth behind it. I have not forgotten about my mortgage and my well-paid permanent job, as well as I have not forgotten my need to open the windows and breath deeply.

Reshuffling the cards and start a new game: I have been playing the same role for too long and no longer having fun. I am not chasing the dream to open a kiosk on a tropical beach, neither to become the vice president of a company, as someone has wished for me.

I am just pursuing myself, my desire to change my range, my need to have my time and the freedom to choose back, and, above all, my will to live close the man I love. The passion for my job hold me in Italy when I had to decide to leave again for London or not, loosing that passion pushed me to pack again and leave.

Excitement, fear, confusion, praise, happiness, strength and curiosity are all the emotions I am feeling in these days. All the same emotions that someone usually feels at the beginning of a new journey, a new path, those feelings for which living is worth.

Today I have not boarded the train that during the last 8 years took me to Rome, living through delays, dirt, chaos and exasperation. Today I have let the train leaving the station not chasing it, I have let someone else get on it on my behalf, nudging for a seat.

Taking a new path scares us,

but after each step we realize how Dangerous was being stuck.

 

Roberto Benigni

This is the quote I read a few days ago getting into a supermarket and it made me smile, it was like a virtual pat on my back.

I stay here a few more minutes, with the empty mug in my hands, looking that is lighting my terrace while the window is open and I am breathing all my freedom in.