This time last year, I was laying on the bed in my room at my parents’ house, in an emotional state which was slowly turning the edge of sadness. I was writing the annual recap for what I thought was an exciting year, however, unaware that all the excitement was simply a curtain that was about to reveal one catastrophe after another, starting as early as the first days of January 2025, leading me to take one final – irreversible – decision.
The end of an era.
I had spent the entire previous year trying to build my life in a place I never felt comfortable in. After all, I had grown up dreaming of leaving my home country, because I never felt safe, nor did I ever agree with the opinions of the community there. Everybody had successfully blown dust into my eyes to make me believe that seeking happiness beyond the border is impossible – or pointless, because perhaps the situation outside home wasn’t much different than in it. Statements I’d later find out were a lie.
Ignoring all the mistreatment and hostility, I had decided to find a way and fit inside a very poorly shaped niche, for which I was obviously way too big. After every single attempt to stay, I was shown exactly why I should’ve left instead: never received a thank you for the jobs I finished; all of my hello‘s were met with fuck-you‘s; my pleads for help received very bulky middle fingers; even my apologies landed at people who took advantage of me.
And when I sat down to write that annual recap, I realized that all my effort to settle down only resulted in a PowerPoint presentation of what a mistake it would be. Even my family, as much as I love them, weren’t enough to balance out people’s intolerance of me. It was evident that I had nothing to hold on to anymore. I packed up and left to start over somewhere else.
Beware of the dog(s)
At the turn of the new year, I had accumulated several projects – enough to support myself financially and keep busy. These projects acted as a cushion for when I left the Film Academy because I was wrong to believe that a place where students are publicly humiliated, wouldn’t treat its staff the same way, after returning there as a teaching assistant.
However, the projects I had signed up for were after all still managed by people from the Academy – something I kept in mind following my exit. And something that would come back to bite me several months later, when these people revealed that the friendship I thought we had only existed to pressure me into working like a slave, with barely anything in return, but insolence, instead of mutual understanding.
Like the movies
A short-lived movie-like rendezvous ended somewhere in the last days of Winter – not unexpectedly, because it was supposed to last just long enough to sync its grand finale right when everything else came crashing down. Frankly, it kept my hopes up that stories like that aren’t just ones you hear. I knew it wasn’t meant to last from the start, but I certainly don’t regret engaging into it – it’s what made the previous year so fun. I had just started feeling stuck and desperate, because my efforts to settle down weren’t yielding the results I anticipated, when I was told one final goodbye in the dead of a cold February night.
One for all – no one for Tommy
Having lost my faith in romance, I sought help from my friends, whom I had helped through similar situations in the past. I wasn’t asking for the world – only a shoulder to cry on without feeling redundant. You would think that moral support in year-long friendships is usually reciprocated, but you’d be wrong – where there’s a giver, there’s a taker – Robin Hood didn’t allocate from the crackers, did he? For the last time in my life, I hoped for somebody – anybody – to hear me out, at the very least. They didn’t.
Desperation-based solutions
Pushed in a corner, I began considering my options. I had just realized that not only could I never have it all if I stayed home, but I also never had anything at all there. All of these issues weren’t simply momentary hiccups – they were problems I’ve been putting up with for a very long time – even in this blog, where most of the posts are dedicated to similar events. Momentary was when it seemed that the issues have subsided. I realized that the only way to solve them was change.
The decision was inevitable – either I stay and deal with unchanging windmills, or I pack my belongings and move somewhere I know I can only rely on myself and start over. It feels like everything in my life happens like in a story of some sort: I became one of those people that come to another city and start anew – the ones you watch a TV-only comedy about during the Holidays.
I never anticipated that I’d make the right decision by moving abroad. I used the opportunity that I still had to study for a master’s as a chance to go somewhere else, at least for a while, at a place where I know nobody – and nobody knows me, and where I knew I couldn’t count on anyone. It all happened in the blink of an eye – I applied, got admitted, booked my ticket and relocated to Italy all in the same month. What followed was a very hollow August, when I felt like I was slapped across the face with a cast iron pan. At the time I didn’t even feel like everything had changed – all of the problems I’ve been fighting for years were over; everyone I’ve known stayed seas and mountains away from me. Only lessons remained.
It was in early December when I finally realized that for five months I’ve been treated better and with more respect and care by strangers in Italy, than by people I knew very well in my home country for twenty-five years. I didn’t have to struggle anymore trying to make others understand me, trying to make them feel what I felt – it all just came naturally.
But truthfully, I was afraid that after making this move, I’d be sad because I’d realize I should’ve moved long time ago. After I woke up from the comatose-like state I was in over the month following my move, I decided to finally become active myself, because I should no longer work for somebody else’s dreams.
I finished my first self-initiated project – “The Drake Passage” – a six-episode documentary podcast series about my process of coming to the conclusion I should emigrate.
The past year was filled with many major points in my life – it was the busiest working year I’ve had so far, I moved to a new city… And even if I had to put up big fights, I’m not afraid of having to fight some more. So, I wish the next one is even wilder. In conclusion: 2025 was the year I no longer had an anchor.
TOMMY EXPLORES THE WORLD 