The struggle to stay connected, how it feels to return home, and everything I ate my first week back in LA.

Plus, a new December playlist.

How It Feels To Be Back In LA

Many people have asked me what it feels like to return to Los Angeles. Do I miss it? Am I happy to be here? Do I miss Italy already? Does it feel the same or different? And, to be honest, it's a lot of thoughts and feelings all at once. I lived in LA pretty much my entire life up until moving to Italy, so forty-one years, to be exact. During those years in this incredible city, I lived in many places, from growing up in Encino and Tarzana to going to high school in Studio City, college at USC downtown, living in Miracle Mile and Koreatown in my early twenties, and then finally buying our first home and living in Atwater Village for the last twelve years (minus a short stint in Denver). This place is a part of the fabric of who I am, and I don't know if it will ever not feel like home when I come here. I know how to navigate the city and drive here; I don't have to think about it every second or even look at a map. I've driven these streets thousands of times, and all the buildings are part of my memory. I know and speak the language, so the challenging everyday tasks that require an insane amount of mental capacity in Italy are effortless here. Old friends and familiar faces are everywhere, and it feels as if nothing has changed here; although we are out of step here, life continues to move forward. It's also strange to feel like this place is the same, yet I am slowly starting to change and gain a new perspective and outlook because our path has taken me in a different direction. Realizing this is no longer where I live every day; it is no longer the place I call home.

And, then I'll get a text from Andre with a video of all the boys sitting on a swing in the park Villa Balestra, with the entire city of Rome as their backdrop, or a video of Costa and Paolo playing soccer in a piazza with new friends while Bruno scales an ancient fountain contemplating whether or not he should dive in. I'm immediately reminded of the unique experience we're having as a family and how, even if they don't realize it now, our children will forever be changed because of this experience. We all will. And this brings on the pull I feel to get back to it, to get back to the discovery of the experience we wanted to provide for our kids and ourselves while they were still young, to keep exploring and experiencing the new place we now call home.

---

Staying Connected

One of the hardest parts of moving to Italy has been staying connected to family and friends. Before we moved, we didn't think it would be that hard, even with the time difference. There is so much technology now to keep people connected, from phones to Facetime to Instagram. We thought if we continued to put in the effort, it would be relatively easy to maintain our routines of talking on the phone and checking in regularly with people we're close to in our lives. And, while yes, these tools make it a thousand times easier than it used to be to stay in touch with people living on another continent, the 9-hour time difference from LA to Rome has proven extremely challenging. When our friends and family here are starting their day and have a few moments to chat before work or after dropping the kids off, we're already nearing the end of our day, in the thick of doing homework, making dinner, bathtime, getting the kids to bed, and working on our business. After that, no energy is left to talk on the phone and catch up. In many ways, it leaves us feeling disconnected and bummed because we want to connect and check in on the people we love but are just so depleted and exhausted by the time we have a moment to. Andre talks about this with me a lot. He's found it particularly challenging and one of the more complex parts of living abroad.