Living As We Choose - In Italy

I've always wanted to live in Europe. As a young girl my dream was to live in Paris. As I got older, most of those dreams moved to the depths of my brain so I could concentrate on "real life".

 I had 4 kids by the time I was 26 and that was what my life revolved around. Them.

 I'm 31 now. My boyfriend is 30. Between us we have 5 children, a multitude of family members and small scattering of friends.

 We both are looking forward to the day that we give most of it up and move to Italy.

 My dream of Italy began a few years back. I realized that the way Italians live, the slower pace of life, the emphasis put on family, the desire to live, not the desire to work, beckons to my soul. I am not an ambitious person. I have no desire to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would be happy in a small home, growing my own vegetables and making dinner for 10 people, if it meant I was happy.

As with most of the things I dream about, it seems whimsical and pure fancy in my mind. I could never actually move to Italy. What would my family do? Then I realized. Why should I sacrifice my own happiness for other people. I've done that my entire life.

 Sean and I became a couple again, after a 15 year seperation, and one day, after just mentioning to him my dream, we began to discuss it.

 While Italy was not always his dream. After learning about Italy, researching the life that people live there, he realized that it's the life he's longed to live as well.

So the planning has begun.

 In either the fall of 2009 or 2010, we will be making a 10 day to 2 week trip to Italy, specifically the Tuscany region. We hope to travel to Rome and Venice while we are there, but most importantly we want to see Tuscany, and hopefully find our future home.

We hope to fully relocate by 2018. Wow, that sounds so far away when I type it out.

My children will be 23, 22 and 14 by that point, his daughter will be 12. I plan to offer them all a plane ticket to join us, or offer to bring them down once a year for a vacation. Obviously my 14 year olds will be coming with me until they are at least 18.

Sean and I talk about these things so often. How will it effect everyone. How will it effect us. Are we ready for these types of changes.

I am so ready. I would move tomorrow if it weren't for the responsibilities that I currently have to my family.

We bought our first book on Learning to Speak Italian. It probably wasn't the best choice, but we wanted to familiarize ourselves before we moved to a very specific learning tool. We bought Italian For Dummies . It will work for now. We've already learned quite a bit, and our goal is to be able to speak Italian fluently by the time we move there.

~M