Imagine walking a beautiful mountain path. The sun is high in the sky, branches wave in the late spring breeze. You’re alone but not lonely, and you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Then you stumble upon a crossroad. No road is better or worse than the other. You must rely on your instinct and trust that the choice you’ll make is the right one for you.
The hardest decisions are those that entail a mandatory metamorphosis. No matter what you choose, your life is going to change anyway.

2018 was the year of my biggest metamorphosis yet, and this very blog is the outturn of that year.
I made two pivotal choices.
One dismantled the person I was.
The other brought me together again.

Io durante un evento a MIlano, 2016

It all started with a transfer request

2018 began as one of the happiest years of my life. I was happy with myself, my job, and my whole existence. My love life was in that special condition that guarantees calm and serenity: non-existing.
Even if I was looking and evaluating other job opportunities, my life could have been described perfectly. Until the company, I worked for relocated my office to Milan.

I worked in the marketing department of a jewelry company, and I was aware that moving to Milan could grant me a bright career. Even if I wasn’t to stick with my company, it would have been easier to find a new job there, in the commercial heart of Italy. Moreover, being alone and with no pending loans, I was free to go.
Yet, my guts suggested otherwise.

A gut decision

My guts reminded me that my painful heartbreak had healed thanks to long walks in the fields at dusk. My heart recalled all the mountain treks that were my mean of release.

What if I don’t like it there and I can’t make nature my refuge? I kept telling myself. The question haunted me whenever I was too close to choose the “relocation option”. It was no denying that moving would have changed my life forever.
Staying would have also changed my life. Staying implied losing the long-term job I had strived so hard to win. Staying implied going back to live with my mom. Staying meant financial insecurities. But staying also meant keeping true to my heart.
Everybody told me that having no family of my own was the reason why I should have said yes to the relocation. But I saw in it an opportunity to take a risk with a lighter heart.

On a midsummer day, I chose my little Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, over the industrious Milan. That was how I dismantled who I was.

A dream fades away

For all my teenage years, I had dreamed of a job in the fashion industry. I dreamed about a glorious life in Milan, with beautiful clothes and a wardrobe full of bags. My previous job in the luxury world granted me a taste of that life. Yet, when given the chance to make it mine, I turned my back to it to stare with enamored eyes at my mountains.

This all sounds very poetic now, but deciding required many tears, sleepless nights, anger, and bitterness.
When I signed my termination of contract letter, I stated 

I’d rather work in a malga (mountain hut), than moving to Milan.

And so I did.

Do you want to know how the story goes on?