When I was 23 yrs old, I left my first job right out of college and made a deal with my parents: if they let me take a year off to go study Italian in Italy, I’d get into an awesome grad program, getting back and staying on my very strict career path.
To no one’s surprise, that year in Italy changed the core of who I was as a person. It wasn’t the amazing food or how the cuisine changes from village to region to small little clifftop towns. It wasn’t Italian history or their endless art.
No, it was that I finally was in a country where I could be whatever “ethnicity” I wanted to be. No one asked me if I was American or why I didn’t feel any connection to the land I was born in, but hadn’t lived in for decades.
As a South Asian- American-educated-Muslim woman, Italy allowed me to just BE, whatever “identity” or person I wished to be. It allowed me a fluidity as a woman of color that is almost impossible for us to find.
Trying to go back to Italy with my husband and kids while living fulltime in America has been hard and mostly impossible. But last week, I managed to escape my scheduled-to-the-brim working mom Washington, DC life…for a writers retreat in Tuscany.
Once again, the country transformed me.
This #WorldMentalHealthDay, I want to remind you not only how important it is to acknowledge the day, tweet it out on X, or write a meaningful LinkedIn post, but to take the time to physically step out of your regular life.
If you are able, evaluate your life spiritually, whatever that means for you.
Taking a timeout for myself from myself made me remember that while the work and goals that drive me are important, they don’t define me. Nothing really does.
How has your identity evolved in your adult life?
Italia and I