Mixed feelings.

There are a lot of things that I miss about Italy, even things that I never thought I would have missed.
I miss my room. I miss the road I take everyday when I walk to the city center. I miss taking the bus and even the times when you wait for 40 minutes at the bus stop for a bus that will take you where you have to go, because even if it's cold and it's raining and you're late you have faith that one will come in the end. Weird but true, I also miss my High School classrooms. I miss the P.E. classes before the break, the Philosophy classes at the last period on Saturday, the classes spent to try to understand the math rule on the board that you already know you'll never use again in your life, and the classes spent doing nothing because you have a sub. I miss waiting for the teacher to arrive in the hallway, the afternoons with the drama club and the ones with the book club. I miss the thick, humid air early in the morning that it feels like breathing underwater. I miss the nights spent out with friends and the ones spent home on my couch watching The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. I miss the flavour of italian food like I've never missed it before. I miss the days at the swimming pool, the nights at the climbing gym, the depressing Sundays, the Mondays that are even worse, and the Thrusdays that never end. I miss poetry in my own language, the de Andrè songs, the crap that they talk about all the time on the tv and listening to the radio during dinner. I miss my cats, my bed, by balcony and even my Art History book. I miss my parents, my family and my friends, so hard that now I am crying just thinking about it.

But the truth is that I am not ready to leave, not at all. I don't think I'll ever be. Because even if I miss all these things every second, I know I will have them back in less than two months. What I don't know is when I'll be back to Idaho. When will I be able to hug again the people that I learned to love even if I knew I had only a number of days with them. The people that I learned to call "family" the ones that changed me forever and the ones that I had the time of my life with. The people that left a print on my heart and I will never stop loving. The people that I probably will not see ever again in my life and the ones I am sure I will meet again because I will make it happen. I don't know when I will be able to see again the landscapes of vulcanic rocks and infinite open spaces of Idaho. The snow in May and the breathtaking sunsets from the kitchen window. The big american trucks and the gas stations that have always what you're looking for, the food that doesn't need a comment and the people you see at Walmart that I wouldn't know how to comment. There will not be anymore days spent at school, changing class every hour, trying to open the locker that doesn't want to open with the fear of being tardy. The Drama classes first thing in the morning and the Choir classes that make you wonder why you didn't discover this passion before in life. Lunches in the cafeteria and the ones out on Friday. Songs that start on the radio just at the right moment, that make you think that the DJ must have known how much you needed it. The two kilos buckets of popcorns at the movie theatre and the liter of soda wherever you go. The marshmallows on the fire, the jumps on the trampoline out in the backyard, and the afternoons out with the fourwheelers, with the dirt in your teeth and the mud on your pants. No more accents from the South, East, West, and of people that come from all around the world and who exactly like me are exploring only to realize that they met themselves on the way. No more Sundays at church trying to understand a culture and a religion that I learned to respect even when I don't agree with it, because now I know that are few the things that are wrong in this world, and that in most of the cases, it's just different. No more american literature, poetry in english and movies in the original version (oh, wait, luckly, that will always happen for me from now on.) No more talking in english with people that can't talk to you in any other way. No more stressing to remember a word that doesn't come to your mind not even in italian, no more looking foolish for using a term in the wrong way and then laughing about it for at least an hour, or pronouncing a word wrong and feeling stupid because people don't understand that you are saying 90, not 19. No more "Oh, you're an exchange student? Where are you from? What part of Italy? Do you like american pizza? Have you ever been to Olive Garden? Why don't you have a strong italian accent?"
The list could go on forever, but the truth is that there will never be a day in my life that I won't miss this place and its people. I understood that you learn to live with it. It's the heavy bag of the traveller. Wherever you are there's always gonna be another place on earth you will miss more.
But the thing that for me is priceless is that, wherever you are there's always gonna be another place on earth, far away, that you can call home.