A different experience

I didn’t have a typical childhood. I used to spend most of my days travelling with my parents, so it was hard for me to develop a sense of belonging to a place. It was because of my parents’ job. Both of them worked at a circus, which gave them their mobile lifestyle.

During those years, everything was transient to me; nothing seemed to last long enough. Every month we had a new home with new furniture. The city and the weather used to change with that as well. To me, except for my parents and a few other people in the circus – whom I used to call uncles and aunts – the rest of the people seemed mobile creatures whose only purpose was to crawl into and out of my life.

Years passed by, and we finally settled in Rome after my dad had to go through his cancer treatment. Being out of his job dealt a major blow to his career, and he was left with no option but to settle in his parents’ hometown. After this change, things started to feel weird. I used to enjoy the constant change of place and people in my life, but it took me a year to get used to Rome. I always felt this urge in me that I had to move to another location and it was getting late. These feelings started to die out as soon as I started making friends with whom I had a deeper, more meaningful relationship. Feelings that I considered weird, due to my past lifestyle, started to become normal after a while.