Guadagno only thing I have lost is a button

Guadagno

Gaining or guadagno in Italian by definition is a merit or craft that is achieved. “What is negative about that definition?” The answer is simply “absolutely nothing”. This positive verb “gain” can be used in multiple contexts such as to manage or achieve, to gain weight, to increase something, or my personal favorite to obtain through effort and hard work. 

            What I have gained from living in Italy for six months - is my life! The life, in which for a short period I lost myself; and now I am gaining all back in small dolce (a sweet or pastry) size pieces. My decision to go to Italy and live in Sicily with a typical family to learn the language of love, cook, and gain weight that had been lost in an engagement/ wedding gone wrong. It was time for me to stand on my own feet even if I did not recognize myself when I looked down.  However, I do not like to think that I ran away from a bad engagement but I ran towards something greater.  Some times in life things do not work out the way they are planned, if you follow your heart and the pasta primavera it could be better than what you dreamt.

I boarded another plane, this time not to Asia but to Sicily with a backpack and suitcase that weighted more than I did, stepping on a scale the morning before my plane took off it blinked back at me at 99 pounds. A born gymnast at the age of 4 and then a professional cheerleader it was ingrained in my mind that smaller is better. My career path was a nutritionist and health educator; but I was the size of a 14 year old girl not a 24 year old woman, the question on deck to myself was “How can I help anyone before I can help myself?”

Sitting on my terrace in Southern Italy as a slight breeze blows my hair and the smell of the sea and olive trees heighten my senses and thirst for life, it has been almost seven months since the plane ride from Washington D.C to Italy. I question myself now, “what have I gained?”  I have gained my appetite for the balance of life. We need food to survive, thrive; we need adventure to feel alive; friends to keep us in line and smiling when we fall. I have simply gained all of these things.

One aspect of gaining has been more difficult then the others, gaining weight. The word gives me a similar physical reaction to the sound of someone’s nails on a chalkboard. What I must come to terms with and realize is that it is okay, living and being happy and healthy in your own skin is one of the greatest gifts of life. My adolescent mentality that has taken over my life of “smaller is better” and I must never dare to indulge in the “forbidden” food group, oil, fat and chocolate seems quite juvenile to me now. I sit on the terrace and promise to never let anything take over my “being” again nor my hunger for life and adventure be suppressed.

So I gained, and told my story to friends on a warm November afternoon; now sitting on my terrace drinking wine and eating homemade pasta with spinach cream filling and freshly grated cheese that I prepared with my Italian friends in my new apartment facing the sea. As I share my story, one friend looks at me as we are enjoying the pleasures of life and says “I understand…but sometimes you just have to get over yourself and enjoy everything you are supposed to feel, we have five senses to touch, see, smell, hear and taste for a reason. So, have another plate of warm pasta, salad from your garden, olives and cheese and get over yourself”. We were in hysterics due to her passionate outburst and love for her friend despite her quiet and calm nature. I took my good friend’s advice, and started gaining.

            In every positive obtainable, tangible object or goal that I have gained in my life, gaining weight has been the most challenging. However, I live in Italy, as they say “when in Rome do as the Romans do.” I am spending time with my new friends drinking the best wine, talking and eating and eating. It is life style and culture here, and I think everyone has a bit to learn about how to live, fresh pizza at 11:00 at night for dinner is normal, Italians know how to live.

My phone rings as I am cleaning the kitchen from my lunch party; it is an emergency call from a good friend and in an exasperated tone she instructs me to come over straight away. I rush over to her flat in a panic and ask if she is alright. She is lying on the bed trying to wiggle into her pants and can not button them. I jump to her rescue and hunched over her with a hanger hooked into the zipper trying to pull the zipper closed we both tumble off the bed in laughter and giggles. The button flies off of her pants and hits the wall with a bang, trying to catch my breath we are both pulling her pants for dear life, gulping for air I breathless tell her to “change into some tights, they stretch, and I hope you are hungry because if we don’t hurry we will be late for the midnight dinner.”  We laugh and link arms singing down the cobble stone path; in tights.

 Life is a balancing act, everything in moderation and proportion will create a happy, thriving, beautiful life.

            As I look at pictures of me then and now, I am a healthy smiling woman; my skin and hair shines from the fresh oil and Mediterranean diet, my scale blinks a healthy 112 pounds for my petite frame, but most importantly I radiate and glow from the inside out because of the peace I feel in my own skin.  

 I have gained everything and lost nothing, except for a button.