on being stuck & struggling

in a recent back and forth with a friend regarding the bureaucratic nightmare for foreigners that is italy, he shared a bit of insight that resonated quite well: 

this started as we had begun discussing when to head back to our university town to collect our new permit of stay documents, of which we are notified by an incredibly vague text message from the national postal system. does the text mean our documents are ready for pick-up? do they mean they’re on their way? does the date and time listed mean we should be there then? how many days should we wait if it’s not that date and time? how many days for a delayed appearance will yield in being reprimanded in italian by police officers, just to have them hand us our documents shortly thereafter? it’s a big, bold, beautiful world, italy. 

this insight was sent to me after we had discussed our plans to improve the bureaucratic procedure - why can’t they just mail the document directly to us at our new address? why must we arrive in-person? what do we do next if we get a job then? “a job sounds nice,” i mused to him, and this is what he responded with. what a sage you are, shivam. 

for months, i have felt stuck. this was expected - graduating from a university usually doesn’t mean a direct hook, line, and sinker into the world of happy and steady employment. don’t get me wrong - i was grateful i had adventures planned, a home to return to, and a few different streams of casual income during my hiatus back in florida. yet nothing seemed to stick or reveal as truly prosperous - life in florida felt increasingly mundane and unwell (as a more liberally-leaning female who works within the realms of education, if you catch my drift) and italy remained as this disconnected and distant entity i was seeking to return to.

after a series of commitments, sacrifices, questions, and settlements with my internal and personal debate team that lives inside my head, i decided to give myself the year. 2023, you are mine. what am i going to do with you? what am i doing with you? 

from a library in a medieval town in the foothills of the italian alps i write this. i opened the library with my own set of keys that the city officials lent to me for the month and a half i am here helping to curate and interpret a museum of kitchen, pastry, and confectionary material culture. i sometimes work alone in this library, sometimes i work with valerio and his collection in the museum. sometimes i sit at my stupidly beautiful airbnb “home” and pace and putz about. more often than not, i find myself reaching out to friends and family to connect, often falling into the trap of the instagram hell-hole of reels (i now have a one hour time limit and twenty minute reminders set).  

living alone and doing a project on my own was a daunting choice to start off this year of adventure (i had thought about naming it “confusion” or “potential” but neither sounded helpful for my spirit). i’ve only ever interned in a museum, really. my other actual employed experience came from giving history tours in pioneer garb in the dead of winter in northern chicago and that one week i worked the reception desk at a contemporary art museum in alabama. i suppose i’ve also helped in writing contracts for exhibitions and doing some event operations, but those felt like peripheral experiences.

now i am here and being introduced as a curator and a researcher. i shouldn’t feel stuck anymore, as those words seem to hold weight and movement. physics teaches me that should result in inertia. it also teaches that objects at rest will stay at rest, or in motion will stay in motion, but both require some kind of external force to act upon me. in a way, shivam explained inertia in a realistic, poetic, and figurative way: “but everyone is struggling. or boring.” struggle is being at motion and boring is at rest. 

so i am not “stuck,” perhaps it is better to say i am struggling. struggling is movement - it is fighting, it is adversity, it is being the punching bag and also throwing the punches. it is getting uncomfortable and getting lost, it is asking for help and guidance, it is breaching the comfort zone and accepting error.  struggling is growth.