An ending and a beginning

These past few months, I have been a bit silent on my blog. Besides my need to adjust to the important shifts that have occurred in my life, I’ve been feeling restricted by my blog. Now that I spend half my time living in Paris, I felt that I couldn’t write about my experiences there because the focus of my blog is Florence. For this reason, I am stopping this blog and am starting a new one tomorrow. My new blog is called “My Heart in Two Places” and my intention is to write about my life in my two favorite and beloved cities: Florence and Paris.

August is normally not a month I feel very motivated to do much, but I decided on creating my new blog last Wednesday and suddenly everything fell into place rather quickly. I finished designing it and even wrote my first article by the weekend, but I am waiting for Wednesday because it’s my father’s birthday. I thought it would be a significant date to which I’d like to attach the birth of my new blog.

I have been adapting to my life between two cities for the past year and a half. I’ve been eager to share more about my experiences teetering in two different worlds, cultures, and languages; however, I stopped myself. By not allowing myself to write much about Paris, I ended up blocking up all my writing and felt as if I couldn’t write about anything. For this reason, I am eager to have the freedom to write about living in two different places.

More changes are still occurring in my life: my job is becoming more important, my writing is aching to come out, and a new love in my life is blossoming. Everything that is happening in my life right now is nudging me to spend more time in Paris. While I used to spend 12 nights in Paris each month, I will now probably be increasing my time away from Florence just a little bit. I am excited about the more time I get to spend in Paris because it is a city I have always loved, and feel ready to love even more.

Initially I was adamant about not spending much time away from Florence, but with each trip away I realized that it was OK to do so. I thought that by not being in Florence I was losing something, but instead I gained even more. Not only did my appreciation for Florence increase, but my love for Paris did as well. It is as if the door to my heart was pulled open a bit wider to let more enter.

I am truly honored to consider Paris my home again because it was the first city where I lived as an expat. Not only has Paris changed in all these years that I have not lived there, but so have I. My relationship to Paris has improved over time. Paris is like a good friend I hadn’t seen in years and when we reconnected, it’s as if no time had passed and now we’re even closer than we were before.

At first, I did wonder if I should leave Florence completely, but my beloved city still plays a very important role in my life, and continues to nurture and inspire me. For this reason, I am happy to now claim to have two homes: one in Florence and one in Paris.

I am extremely grateful that so many people have taken the time to read my blog these past eight years while I’ve been living in Florence. I was surprised to see that I wrote almost 1300 entries in eight years! Even though I will no longer write about Florence on this blog, I will continue to do so on my new blog. I am eager to write more about Florence and Paris so that I can intertwine the two and give a fuller picture of my expat life.

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