Eat, Pray, Heal

There are so many reasons that people travel - there's adventure travel, babymoons and honeymoons, culinary trips, ecotourism, the latest trend of slow tourism, and there's even revenge travel. As a foodie, I'm a personal fan of trips revolving around food and I also love adventure tourism, but there is really one main reason I travel. Obviously, I love to explore the world and see how gorgeous our planet is, first and foremost. But the main reason is that I love to immerse myself in other cultures and other environments, as it's a reminder of how vast the world really is and how small and insignificant I am, which ultimately leads me to live more boldly and in the present. That may sound counterintuitive, but every time I travel, I'm reminded that the world is so much bigger than me and my own problems. I'm just a little speck of dust compared to all that's going on in the world. This helps me to live more freely! Connecting with others and hearing their stories, learning more about worlds beyond my own help me to get out of my own head and see the bigger picture. We're a vast and interconnected species on a giant planet that's part of a huge and interconnected universe - what a privilege it is to be alive!

After losing my dad in 2017, I'm starting to see the parallels between my love for travel and my grief and healing journey. If I'm honest, during the first couple years of my grief, I was truly in such a myopic place that it was the exact opposite of what I just mentioned. I couldn't see past my own pain, darkness and sadness I was swimming in. My world felt so tiny and I could barely see right in front of me. I was just trying to survive. But as I started to tell my story of loss, I realized we live in an interconnected universe of loss as well. Grief and sadness are a universal truth and experience we will all face at some point in this life and I've found community and healing in sharing my story. So just like travel changes me through the people I meet and hearing their life experiences, I'm changed by each story of loss that is shared with me as I share my own personal loss journey.

That's how I landed in Rome on a healing trip. Many people go on yoga retreats to Bali or Costa Rica or to the temples of India or Nepal to find healing... not many go to Rome. Rome is for copious amounts of pizza, pasta and wine, and I would actually argue all those things are very healing in their own way. And yes, I ate a lot of carby things in Rome, as one does (not to mention, a lot of gelato). Rome was initially a place of tragedy and sadness for me, but I decided it was time for a do-over with the Eternal city.

I was at a wedding in Rome the day my dad passed. It was our 2nd to last day in the city then and to say it put a damper on the trip is an understatement. The wedding itself was so, so, so much fun and the sad irony is that the bride had also lost her dad a few years beforehand. This is something that would immediately connect us once she heard the news. We would see each other over the following years after that and talk about our dads, how there were parallels (her dad was dying around my own wedding date), and connect over our losses. When she had another celebration in Rome years later for her 40th birthday and invited me, I was initially hesitant to join, as Rome wasn't very good to me the first time. But I thought well, I can't have a negative connotation with such an amazing city forever so maybe this time will be an opportunity to reframe Rome in my mind. Of course I was there to celebrate my friend's bday (which was just as fun as her wedding, she really knows how to party!) and she also understood how I wanted a "2nd chance at Rome." She was very gracious in really getting the secondary meaning behind this trip for me, given she had also lost her dad.

So I found myself in Rome again 6.5 years later after that first trip. I stayed in the same neighborhood as we had the first time, in Trastevere. Some of the birthday festivities were right there in Trastevere and a few others were a short distance across the river near Piazza Navona, so I was centrally located for the bday happenings. I also wanted a chance to walk around the same neighborhood in which I found out the news about my dad so I could rewire it in my brain. I wasn't sure if this would be a triggering or healing experience, but it turned out to be the latter. I think if I had done this in the first few years after his passing, it may have been more difficult but enough time has passed (and enough therapy ha) that I had a new perspective in which to do so. It also didn't hurt that I stayed at the CUTEST Airbnb and my host Lavinia had a lot of amazing recommendations for me to check out as I wandered around - I definitely recommend her place if you go!

This was my first solo international trip and since I was in search of healing, I think going it alone was the right choice. Yes, I was meeting up with friends at various points, but exploring the city on my own with different eyes from almost 7 years ago was very therapeutic. That's literally all I did outside of the birthday festivities - just wander the streets of Rome and get lost in the winding cobblestone alleyways. Trastevere is especially known for it's quaint and romantic streets, as you can see below. Time alone is very healing for me so it was lovely to just roam uninterrupted. Yes, roaming in Rome, pun intended. To me, walking in a city to see the sights is almost like a walking meditation or a walking prayer. I get lost in my thoughts as I get lost in the city streets.

I stumbled upon the square in which we stayed on our first trip (Piazza Trilussa) and walked right by the entrance to our Airbnb then - the place where I found out the news about my dad's passing. I wasn't necessarily searching this out, but I knew the second I saw it what is was. It's a place that will be forever emblazoned in my mind. Obviously, I couldn't go into the Airbnb, but the memory of that night came rushing back as soon as I saw the gates to the entrance of the building. I actually remember running through those gates into the street when I heard the news, not even sure where I was going, but I just had an instinct to get fresh air. It's so wild how the body responds to tragic news. What's funny is that running, specifically running outside to feel the air in my lungs, became a big coping mechanism for me.

I also found the restaurant that was the last place I texted with my dad the day before he died. He was watching our dogs during our trip and had sent me pictures of them while he was working. We had just come from the Vatican that morning and in true fashion, he was joking with me about how he was surprised they let me in and the church didn't spontaneously combust. So I decided to take myself to lunch at that same restaurant, sitting outside like I had almost 7 years before. I honestly had no idea if any of the places from my firs trip would still be open after so long, and after the pandemic, so it was nice to see this place still kicking. I ordered the cacio e pepe just like I had the first time around. It was just as delicious this time. I spent lunch thinking about my dad and meditating on all that's happened in the past 7 years and all he's missed. If only I had known that would be the last time I would text him...

Anyway, since a celebration was the reason for my first trip to Rome, it was wonderful to be back for another celebration. It was nice to have fun in a place that had brought me such sadness the first time around. Well, technically, the wedding the first time around was incredibly fun and we had an amazing time, so we had a a lot of fun until we got the bad news. Things turned for the worst very quickly that night. But this time around, going for a milestone birthday felt like the right thing to do to celebrate the life of such a vibrant, amazing person in a place I associate with another life ending. Morbid, I know, but it's true. And I believe good people know good people and my friend Emna sure has an amazing group of friends. This trip was truly made by meeting her people! As I mentioned previously, the main reason I love to travel is to meet new people, learn about other cultures, hear other people's stories and boy, did I do that on this trip! I met people from Canada, Norway, Morocco, France, Peru, the Middle East and some from right there in Rome. Everyone was beyond kind and so easy to talk to - I made new friends right there on the spot! Through one of these new friends on this trip, I even connected over personal stories of grief with a woman who just moved to the States not far from me in FL. It just reminded me again how we're all connected through the universal experience of loss as humans. The juxtaposition of mourning and joy on this trip was not lost on me. We truly cannot feel one without the other. Celebration in the face of grief, joy and happiness in the face of sorrow. We cannot explore the light without the shadow sides of this beautiful life. How wonderful it is to be able to experience them all at once in this human experience. How will you embrace both joy and sorrow, lightness and darkness, beauty and pain all at once in this one precious life we've been given?