There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

I've been in New York two weeks now, frantically afraid of running into someone I know, hiding behind my sunglasses and excessive make-up. Conscience doth make cowards of us all. I finally managed to call Avy an hour or so ago, she didn't recognize my voice when I said hello so I guess it's been too long.

Italy was good to me, as it always is but I need things to change now, in whatever way. Tomorrow never felt more real or frightening but maybe it's a good thing.

Today I'm washing away the make-up and I'm ready to stare into the sun on Fifth Avenue. Avy is coming to meet me and sometimes I forget what she looks like and how it feels to hold her close.

Magnets

Maybe it's just my imagination but whenever Avy's thinking of me I can feel it in my blood. Like her I sometimes forget, but when you love someone they're never really gone. They're a part of you that's always hidden somewhere underneath the skin, and that's what makes us love them.

If I don't miss Los Angeles I feel a greater need to go back to New York, not just to see her but to be in the city. Maybe I'll go soon, dad has told me he's going to stay in Milano one more week. I'm guessing he wants me to back with him but he would never actually tell me it to my face.

City of angels

We've arrived in Milano and I feel right at home as I always do here. Dad doesn't mention my mom, I guess she's still in Los Angeles, sipping long drinks by the swimming pool.

LA, it's been so long I can almost not remember what it felt like. I can picture our house in my head but not the smells, not the colors. I don't miss it but it's something that's been close to me all my life, and now it's only a fading memory.

Isn't it strange how quickly we forget?

Sweetlings

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last posted something here. It happens to me always, I close my eyes and when I open them again half a lifetime has already passed. I wonder if someone missed me while I was gone but realize they would have contacted me if they did.

I'm in Rome, I've been here for a couple of weeks with my dad. He acts as if nothing has happened between us, like I wasn't away from him for almost a year without calling. In a way it's a good thing, I can pretend too and be that little innocent girl I was for so long.

He's promised to take me to Milano soon, I remember lazy lunches at the Rinascente in the middle of the hot summer and how he would buy me pretty things just because he loved me.

Desperado

Darlings. I know I've been silent for a long time now, but I've been reading your comments and as always they make me smile. I wish I could say that something has happened while I was gone but I only needed some time and space for myself. I sometimes need to get away from everything and everyone and pretend like nobody knows me or who I am. I can walk around any city feeling like a stranger to everybody and it's very liberating.

The last couple of weeks I've missed New York, and Avy. Never Los Angeles, never my mom, always my dad. He's always been good to me even though he doesn't understand me anymore, maybe I need to give him a chance to get to know me again. I think I'll be going back soon, back to America, I need to see people that know and love me. I'm tired of being away from everything and everyone, feeling like a total stranger.

Where will we go?

Avy left but it's alright, sometimes I think I love her more when we're apart. There are moments when I wonder how much she really needs me but deep down I know that she does. She's the sort of person I trust in, always, she doesn't have to say much for me to know what she's thinking and feeling.

I'm getting tired of Venice, the smell and the tourists. I don't want to go back to America just yet but I think I have to change something. Elise has to stay for another month, maybe I'll wait for her and bring her with me. I haven't seen much of her lately but I know she wants to see the rest of Italy too.

Where would you go if nothing could stop you?

In which she sits on a couch

My last weekend with Avy here, she told me she was leaving over dinner yesterday. I understand her, this is my country more than hers. We ate and drank at the Antica Besseta, just the two of us, like lovers. This city is so grimy and gray after sunset, the alcohol helps to make it more colorful.

So I'll be alone again, even though I have Elise. It's not the same, she doesn't know me like Avy does and maybe it's a good thing. I hate being stuck, when I meet new people I feel as if I can start all over again. I just don't know what to do with that freedom.

Home at last

Avy is here, I couldn't believe it until I saw her getting out of the taxi in Piazzale Roma, always with the movie star style sunglasses and high heels. We haven't talked much since, maybe there's nothing to talk about, and it doesn't matter as long as she's close to me again. I know she can't stay forever but for the first time in almost a year I feel at home somehow.

It rains here too, spring doesn't seem to be anywhere near but the sunlight is beautiful and I'm looking forward to warmer days. Some people are trying to convince you that shopping won't make you happy but they're wrong. I only have to close my eyes and imagine a summer dress from Ferragamo. If only everything else in life was that simple.

Habemus Papam

I know it's been a while but the election of the new pope has been on my mind ever since it happened. I watched it on CNN, one part of me was disgusted and another part wanted to be there, in Rome. Some of you that have been with me from the beginning know that I've had to challenge my faith, and I still struggle with it every single day.

One part of me saw a bizarre, almost appalling ceremony taking place behind closed door, and a single man being presented to the people as if he was the great savior we've only been waiting for. The other part saw men and women gathering over something they all believe in, instead of being divided but everything that sets them apart from each other.

I still have those two images before me and I'm trying not to make the choice between them. They're incompatible but both are true at the same time. I've asked Avy to come join me for Easter, it would take my mind off things seeing her again.

Lost time

I should have gotten more involved with people I met when I was younger. I think about it now, all the places I've been to and I was always just caught in my own bubble, obsessed with every aspect of life except the things that really mattered. I could have had so many friends, I could have had so many more memories but all I did was dream myself away to the next place.

I didn't see it like that then, it's only now that I realize how I wanted to get away from wherever I was, and that I was never satisfied. I had an amazing childhood but it could have been even better, even more. What I'm afraid of now is what will happen if that innocence is forever lost, that I will never again be able to go back to how I was and see life things through the eyes I have now.

Recitar!

Elise is one of those people that can be superficial and profound at the same time. It's a rare quality and one that I admire, being able to talk about fashion or beauty as if it was a matter of life and death, while at the same time knowing everything about Italian turn of the century opera (when she's bored she whistles the intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana).

I'm told her father is an artist and her mother a former runway model - it almost sounds too good to be true and I want to meet them soon. They've lived all over the world and Elise has always moved with them, until she ended up in Venice studying architecture. She asks about me and I bend the truth, I'm afraid of what she would say if she knew so I keep things simple. At least for now.

#MilanFW

Italy is a the center of everyone's attention these days, because of the election of course. I on the other hand couldn't care less, especially when it's fashion week. Elise and I took the train from Venice on Thursday and have spent the weekend here together, going to shows and hanging around the Piazza del Duomo.

Except for the duomo itself it's not a pretty city, but the fashion is great. I loved Versace's "vunk" even though everyone else seems to hate it. I loved Cavalli's prints (that sort of looked like vintage Versace), and I loved Miuccia Prada's romantic elegance.

I wore: bodysuit (American Apparel), skirt (Gucci), clutch (Abro), necklace (Marc Jacobs), headdress (vintage)

Support

Thank you all so much for the sweet words, it means the world to me!

Elise and I have spent the evening in my hotel room, having some precious girl time together. She knows a masseuse that came by and helped me get rid of some excess tension. I feel how I relax more for each day, weights are falling off my shoulders. Maybe it's her company or maybe it's me, it really doesn't matter right now. She's pretty, I'll show her to you as soon as I get a new camera.

We've said we're going to call the business men from the bar, but time is on our side. All good things come to she who waits.

Mr Hemingway

Drinks at Harry's Bar is a total cliché, but some clichés are worth trying. History is everywhere in this city, hundreds of years of it. I went with Elise, she knows the streets better than I do, we drank our Bellinis and ate our olives and it was late on a Sunday.

Two men were watching us from across the room, we could both feel it and smiled at each other. They came and talked to us, it turns out they're business men from the US. I faked an Italian accent, they gave us their numbers and told us to call them. It's like I said, when I try to be alone I end up meeting new people, and this time those people seem to have a lot of money in their pockets.



 

New friends

It's so strange, whenever I try or want to be alone I end up meeting new friends. I had only been in Venice a week when someone started talking to me in the Ferragamo store. We tried on clothes together and went out for drinks in the evening. She's British with a French mother but lives and studies in Venice, her name is Elise and it feels as if we can talk about everything.

Not that I've told her everything about me of course, yet. Not many people know how I grew up and how my family is, and I've been gathering the strength to tell someone for years. I don't know what good it would do me but I think it's something I have to do.

Greetings from another part of the world

Ciao tutti. I've landed in Venice, physically and mentally. It's been hard finding a wireless network (my aunt doesn't believe in the Internet), I'm writing this from a restaurant near the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. It's cold compared to LA (48 degrees), but the sun is shining and the light is fantastic.

I've spent my first days just walking around, enjoying the calm safely away from San Marco and the Rialto. There are always tourists here but its much worse during the summer. I remember spending time here with my family when I was little but everything seems so much smaller now. I guess growing up also means that the world becomes less indefinite, for better or for worse.

Something new

So I've been saying I need to find myself, or grow up, or something that means change from what I've been up until now. It's easier said than done, of course, we are who we are but I refuse to believe in destiny or the pre-determined. If we can't change then there's no point in going on, and I want to go on. I've seen what life can become and now I want to get it for myself.

I'm going to Italy again, that's where I feel most at peace with everything. I need it to start all over, if this is to become the year when it all happens. Venice I think, I have family there and I will contact them when I get there. A small part of me is hoping I will have to find my own way, that would be the bigger adventure.

But tonight it's all about the goodbyes. The see-you-laters. The I-will-always-love-you-and-you-will-be-in-my-heart-wherever-I-gos. You know, the little things, with Avy.



 

Pack and get dressed

Salvatore went back to LA, his vacation is over and now he has to cook for my mother again. I don't even want to think about going back, but I know I have to. Sooner or later anyway. I'm still in New York with Avy but we don't spend much time together, she seems distracted. I don't want to impose, she knows she can talk to me if she wants to. I'm restless, and I can't see what the future will look like. I just want to get away again, to go anywhere but here and feel anything but this. Italy maybe, it was good to me this past summer. A part of me wants to call Tom, it's been months since we last talked. Should I call him?

The road is long

I haven't been here in a while, thank you all for still being around. It's not that I've forgotten about it, it's not that I have nothing to say, I just needed some time to gather my thoughts. 2012 was that sort of year, so much happened and I tried so hard to change along with them. In the end I didn't, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the same timid and narrow-minded little girl I was 12 months ago.

Salvatore came to New York, he called me and we met up. I've spent a lot of time with him, both because it reminded me of my life back in LA and because he's good to me. He understands me, I think he always has. He's seen me as something more than others have and it means a lot to me.

I'm rambling, but what I want to say is this: I won't give up. I don't want to be the person I've been up until now, I want to change because I have to. I'm not 15 anymore, I've grown up and now it's time to become that older version of myself.