Today marks exactly one year since we closed our home's door and, with great emotion, left behind the goodbyes and hugs of friends and family. Perhaps I sound like a broken record because in my end-of-year post, I always say that the year has passed very quickly. This year it happened even more than usual. I find myself writing these lines, and it feels like I left just yesterday.
I wouldn't even know where to start describing everything that has happened in these months, which isn't much when you think about it, but it's not little either. I'll try to divide it into chapters with the most important themes for me.
Health
Both physical and mental. This year, my "only" physical exercise was the 20km commute to work during the three days of office presence. Not bad, but I would have preferred to add another sporting activity. I tried for some time to use our building's gym, but I have a shoulder problem that has been bothering me for a while, and then the gym bores me to death. I had hoped to find some Padel courts, but here only pickleball exists, and I abandoned that idea too. Next year, I would like to find a five-a-side soccer team, if possible, without driving too many kilometers. I trust it might be easier than padel.
Mentally, it has been a year of deep maturation. I understood not only that Noemi and I can truly live anywhere in the world, but drastically reducing commute times and being able to do it by the ocean has greatly benefited my mental resilience. I feel much calmer than before and face life with a bit more lightness now that things are more or less settled.
Work
It has been an important year. I started the year in a new office, with new colleagues, and with a language that I know, but it's not my mother tongue. A leap of faith. Fortunately, the company values are shared and the same as those I left in Italy. However, I had to learn how office sociality is different from our country. Here, traffic dictates the rhythms of life, so many colleagues can't stay after work hours for a beer or to chat unless agreed weeks in advance.
On the other hand, I've had many satisfactions, met many new people in the industry, and feel I have the tools to face the new year with even more energy and enthusiasm.
I want to spend a few more words talking about the work world here in the States. Despite the ease with which they can leave you jobless from one day to the next, on the other hand, there are many career opportunities to be considered, and it's quite easy to find a new job. Efforts and meritocracy still count for something here. I've had direct experience with this, but especially Noemi with her well-ended job search.
Friends
I can't say it's an easy topic. By nature, we've noticed how it's rather complicated to make new friends here. I don't say this negatively, but only as a cultural difference compared to ours. Warmth is not lacking, because on the street it's much more common to find someone who greets you and asks how you are instead of someone who walks straight ahead with a gloomy face. Unfortunately, few want to go beyond that. Fortunately, we've met a couple of couples with whom we've bonded quite well over the months and whom we see with some regularity and mutual satisfaction.
I must also admit that we have focused little on making new ones. First because of the move and various arrangements, later because over the months we've had really many guests from Italy to whom we've rightly dedicated all our time.
Welfare
If you don't have health insurance, you're dead. If you don't have good health insurance, you have to pay a lot out of pocket. These are the two assumptions to keep in mind when coming to live here. With no public healthcare, everything is in the hands of insurance companies that promise to cover every kind of expense, however, you always have to be very careful about what treatment you decide to undergo, because the extra cost is just around the corner.
I learned this the hard way after a steroid injection in my shoulder, as well as at the vet for Panna. On the other hand, bureaucracy works and works well. We received our social security number (the equivalent of the Italian fiscal code) in less than a week after requesting it on January 2nd last year. Same for everything else. If they give you an appointment (doctor, workers, technicians, etc.), the time is that and it doesn't slip.
Day by Day
If like me you grew up in the late '80s, the United States and their culture have certainly crossed your path. At that moment, you unconsciously made a choice: either adore what you were admiring or completely free yourself from it. I, as you will have understood, belong to the first category. I never really believed in the American Dream, but I've always been fascinated by how everything I'm passionate about - from technology to video games - almost always saw its birth from this part of the world.
Then when I happened to come here several times over the years, I couldn't help but be amazed by their vastness and exaggerated disproportion in every area of life. Last but not least, the cradle of gaming companies resides here, and here I would always have wanted to have an opportunity to work and shape my future based on my passion.
And if arriving here we've largely realized that the American dream is now coming to an end, we've come to terms with the fact that we're sufficiently armored to face a country very different from ours, but which is still welcoming us well despite everything. The first months weren't the easiest, but now we're starting to get into the swing of things, of how smoke circulates here and how we can manage to adapt well.
The weather does a lot, having perpetually 20 degrees C during the day if not more with the sea 5 minutes away is a godsend. I didn't think it could benefit the mood so much and yet... I could go on for hundreds of lines telling you how we still experience a sense of estrangement when we go grocery shopping and read the list of ingredients, how expensive food is and how cheap gasoline is, homeless people, the song of seals in the morning and squirrels crossing our path, how badly Angelenos drive, how we struggle to interface with a culture of predetermined responsibility and without stretch... but I decide to stop here.
Because if from these lines of mine one might think that we're not doing so well here, I also want to say clearly that we are doing well here and have found a different dimension that perhaps in Italy we wouldn't have obtained otherwise.
We are stronger, we are better, we love life and want to discover the world. It's the greatest gift this year could have ever given U.S.
