The EmmieBK Blog

I entered tumblr with the idea to work on a post blog about how it’s nice to see people change for the best version of themselves, but then I thought... nah, I need help with something else, let’s ask tumblr!

I always loved writing and I also published a book with some friends some years ago. 

Anyway lately I found again the “fire” in me and I found a system that allows me to be constant in writing even if I’m slower. 

Let’s arrive to the point here... I have an idea from a while now. It’s about these “warriors” living among us which job is to fight all the bad influence coming from “magic” like demons etc... and they work to protect magic creatures that lives hidden among us. 

The original idea was that warriors are not allowed to use magic because it’s very easy to be fascinating by that power. This was a bit the key for the superbad guy, a warrior who got corrupted by magic and became evil. 

Now I don’t like this idea because I don’t want to express the concept magic=evil or magic=bad. First of all because wouldn’t be fair to lots of people, like some pagans for example, who use the concept of magic, second because I don’t want to endorse the Christians who believe that Harry Potter is corrupting children.

At the same time I would like to not end up using “good magic” vs “bad magic”.

So I don’t really care about the concept of magic per se. I need to find a job that justify the “warriors” existence. 

In my story scheme to be a warrior is a kind a vocation, but at the same time you’re chosen for it as a child and the aim of this order is to keep balance in the world and help a specific group of creatures/people. 

Now, people of tumblr, inspire me with your ideas! And let me know if you want me to share more about the story I have in mind. 

Small clarification (in case it’s the first time on this blog). I’m not a native English speaker, I’m italian, so if you find my style odd or not correct, no worries I write a much better italian than this. 

I’m a sensitive and empathic person. 

It took me years of self introspection and observation to understand that personalities have different shades, that a person behaviour comes from somewhere. That makes me less judgemental and more patience. I also do my best to not stop to the first bad impression and most of the time this attitude pays off. 

I’m familiar with psychological terms and concepts because since I was a child my father, a psychologist, shared some basic knowledge with me (just for the sake of the conversation not as a teacher). I studied cinema and screenwriting, so going into the psychology of a character is something that I know how to do. Plus what I studied made me even more observant because I use what I see in real life in what I write. 

At last I’ve enjoyed a couple of years of therapy myself. 

All this to say that I might be a good people reader and a good friend. I’m a great listener, that’s because I learnt that most of the time when friends want to rant they don’t want really advices, they want just to be heard, to know that somebody is acknowledging their feelings. I learnt it on my skin, I just noticed that some friends were giving me unasked comments or opinions when I really didn’t need them, I needed just somebody to tell me: “yeah, life sucks, but I’m here, you’re not alone”. 

I didn’t want to brag or show what an amazing friend I might be. I don’t care to do that and at the same time there is no point in denying that listening to my friends is one of the thing I do good.

But here the funny thing. Every time that I show this understanding of people to my mother she goes with: “See, you should’ve been a psychologist”. Sometimes she still asking me if I didn’t regret to take such path. 

My answer is “NO”. I love to listen to my friend also because I love them and I want to share emotions with them, I don’t really care for sitting in a room listening to some strangers problems, trying to keep distance and then charge them 100 euros. I just want to be the best friend I can be for the people I love. 

I find so sad that my mom doesn’t get it, because the reason why she doesn’t is that my parents didn’t value deep friendship. It’s for sure a problem of the older generations, above all of people who get married young and then disappear into the couple. 

My parents have a lot of shallow friends for a chat and a dinner party, but none of them know I’m in a lesbian relationship because my parents won’t talk of serious things with them. It would be nice they could, event to say bad things about me. I don’t care if they talk with a friend saying “I’m so disappointed in her because she is gay” or whatever they feelings are, as long as they share!

I’m back in the NL!!!

It has been a week already, but I focused on re-embrace and appreciate my routine. 

The last days in Rome went smoothly. I made some time to pass with my parents (my mom made time to make me notice she wants me to lose weight, but that’s no news) and I had the possibility to enjoy my old gang of best friends. 

If you moved abroad, or just far from home, you’d notice how selective you get with the friends you left behind. 

At the beginning I was doing my best to meet all the friends I used to have in Rome before moving. That meant eating out almost every day and coming back home exhausted because I’m and introvert-extrovert (I like socialising but I need time to recharge). 

After building up new friendships here where I live, friends who know me well from my present life in the NL, I felt less the need to keep on with everybody in Italy. It was too much work and most of them didn’t know me enough to understand how I was growing and living now that I was far away. 

That’s how I arrive to the clear idea to meet just my dearest group of friends from high school and my friend J (see previous posts). It’s not a case that they’re the only ones who took time to visiting me here and they’re the only ones who met my girlfriend. 

It’s a small group of 3 couples (it’s actually 4 but two of them moved to another city). 

It was so refreshing to meet around a table, having a pizza and just chat and laugh. We’re different, but the same. Some of our topics changed, now we’re talking also about weddings, children on the way, children who are just born, but the feeling it’s the same, the connection is the same. 

That’s why I made a point to cultivate my friendship with them, and make the effort. I’m thankful for all the other friends I had in the years and they meant a lot to me at the time, but it’s normal to grow apart sometimes and I rather give a good shot to the people that are giving me something now (and I do my best to give back) that waste my energy in relationships that remain shallow. 

Being back is wonderful. I missed my home so much. I misses my routine. I missed the silence. I missed my girlfriend more than everything. 

I don’t know how my parents don’t get it yet. They think I’m with my girlfriend because I’m afraid to be alone (which it’s ridiculous because I happily dumped guys in the past who would love to stay with me, but I always prefer to be by myself than settle for a “meh” match). 

I’m just in love. We’re almost three years together and I love her everyday more. I also had a friend who at the beginning of my relationship said: “oh that’s the honeymoon phase, giving it few months”. Well, three years later I feel the same as at the beginning. She is my soulmate and true love. 

I’m a bit sad my parents don’t see it, I’m happy that my sister does. 

Today I met with my friend J.

She is one of my best friends because I feel a strong connection with her. We met practicing martial arts 13 years ago or so. She is 6 years older than me. However we just connected straight away.

At the time, the dojo where we were practicing was a strong and nice group of friends, so we did lots of activity together. But even if the others weren’t there the two of us found always some time to have a beer after practice.

She is not Italian, she moved from her country to Italy to study and then to work (she is supersmart). She is the only one of my friends in Rome who understand me 100% because she knows what it means to emigrate and leave in between two countries.

She is a friend that feed my soul. Doesn’t matter for how long we don’t talk, every time is a real heart to heart talk and it’s always inspiring. I feel so good after talking with her (even when she just answer to my emails) because she is a person who listen with her heart. 

I’m so happy she is in my life and I love that we always steal some time for a lunch just the two of us.

Talking with her I felt how much I’m missing doing martial arts and I want to go slowly back to them. I think I would like to go back to kickboxing, a step at the time, I know I can do it.

All of this just to say, find friends who feed your soul, who inspire you and keep them close!

Another good thing happened today is that my dad asked me how I felt to be back here. This was a good question. Finally a question that could help me to communicate with him. So I said that I was happy to visit, but that I found interesting to have the confirmation on how now I am an adult with my different routine, ideas, hobbies, ways to be. 

I felt like an adult visiting her parents and passing some good time with them, an adult that will go back to her life built in a personal way. I’m happy to visit, I’m happy to go back to my life. 

Important for the story: Civitavecchia is a small town nearby Rome, on the seaside (it’s where my parents originally come from). This town has two cemetery, one old and one new. 

Going to the cemetery doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. So when my parents told me that the day after the celebration of their anniversary we would go as a family to the cemetery in Civitavecchia to greet my grandparents tombs, both me and my sister cringed big time. 

My mom said: “I don’t care, we want to go, it’s important!”

I sucked it up (and so did my sister), however a family friend told us: “it’s part of their story, you need to respect that because it’s also your story” and we both kind of understood we needed to make the best of it and spend some nice time as a family (rare rare thing). 

I was scared it would be an emotional journey with my parents crying about the fact that they’ll be dead soon (they’re saying this already from 5 years, they’re both fine, they’re just dramatic). Surprisingly it was very different. 

First of all my approach to the cemetery changed. I’ve my own ideas of the afterlife, nothing to do with judgment or heaven and I never ever believed in hell. I think we’re souls who come back to these flow of souls where we are all and one at the same time. So when I was there, at the first cemetery, instead of being sad or creeped out by all these tombs I got more a peaceful feeling. First of all I saw other people who really got comfort from visiting a tomb and I respect that. If it helps with grief just do it. But what hit me the most was the displaying of so many amazing lives. I couldn’t help to just enjoy how many different people, how many different stories, ho many different souls and how rich all this was. I felt good and not sad. 

However we lost my grandma again. We went to visit her just once 8 years ago and at the time I needed to go to ask to the office where she was because this new cemetery is huge and it’s easy to get lost. This time the office was closed, luckily I kind of remembered where she was and after a bit of searching I found the spot. Poor grandma!

We went, then, to visit my other grandparents in the old cemetery. My grandfather on my dad side looked mad in his picture, we didn’t leave any flowers to him because he used to say he didn’t want to. He is the grandfather I wish I’d meet, because he was a contractor underwater (so he was a diver when the technology was nothing like now) and he fought against the nazi during the WWII. My dad says that he didn’t like to talk, but maybe with me would’ve be different. 

My sister has good memories of my other grandfather, so it was nice for her to see again his picture. He died before I was born. My other grandmother died when she was just 52, I was named after her. I had a random thought when I was there: “I like that I’m named after you, I hope you like it too”, I felt she answered “yes”. 

My sister wasn’t moody and my parents didn’t let the bad thoughts to have the best of them. So we went to a nice restaurant and indeed we had good family time. We walked along the sea and the day was sunny. 

This will be forever a good memory and I’m happy we did it. I don’t believe in greetings tombs, but now I’m not scared of it anymore and I understand who does it. I will be back for sure in the future because that’s part of my story too. 

In the picture the Mediterranean Sea from Civitavecchia. 

My parents celebrated their 50 years wedding anniversary and they organized a blessing in the Church and a party with friends. 

I’m very happy and proud of them, they still love each other and I know that they want to be together.

I had some downs before the ceremony because the Church is involved and I’m still in my personal “inner fight” with the CC (Catholic Church). They asked me to read the prayers of the faithful and write a couple of them for my parents. I wrote the prayers trying to avoid explicit expression like “with the help of the Lord” or similar, but my mother changed them with “enlighten by the Holy Spirit”... so I got upset because I don’t believe in this right now and everything I have against the Church just came back into my mind. 

However when we were actually in the Church I saw how many friends and people came to celebrate my parents and that for them was indeed an important moment as a couple. So I calmed down and I understood I needed to be there for them and not be moody (even if I would have very good reason to be... like they didn’t invite my girlfriend and it would be an inconvenient to do it because their “friends” don’t know I’m in a gay relationship). 

However there was no need for me to be petty. My parents can be annoying, my mom can using some toxic talk (with herself too), but at least they’re not narcissists and I know they’re trying the best they can for now. So I need to be a bit the bigger person here. Not backing up on who I am, but not being petty and resentful all the time. Good for me, *pat pat* on my shoulder!

Funny fact, my cousin’s aunt is a nun. She is supersweet, small and round, she looks like she just got out from a Disney movie, when she said goodbye to me she said these cryptic words: “hold on, we’ll win!”. I think she meant that I should hold on into my faith since I’m leaving in one of the most atheist country in Europe (with a protestant Bible Belt). I mumbled back “might the force be with you, sister” but she didn’t hear that. 

Poor thing, she thinks I’m a such good catholic girl, she doesn’t know that I’m gay and pretty mad to her bosses right now. I would love to see her expression if I would tell her that I’m closer to modern satanism than to the CC right now. 

Eventually if was a nice celebration and I saw my parents happy of that. This was important, I love them and I wish just the best for our family. 

After the party I went with my dearest friends to have a drink. They’re my friends from high school and I know them from before they ended up together as a couple. They’re the friends I would always make time to meet when I’m Rome. They’re married now and with a baby on the way. They’ll be amazing parents and seeing them growing as a family is a privilege that I’m grateful of. 

Day 2 of my trip here went ok. My parents didn’t bother me too much and I managed to spend the evening with my dearest friends walking in the center of Rome and having an amazing gelato. 

However when I tried to tell my father (a psychologist) that I might have ADHD he answered like 90% of people in this case: if you had it you wouldn’t go well at school. I tried to explain to him that in women it works different, but I had the impression that he would be pissed, like: “why you have to say there is something wrong with you?”. Which is not the case at all! There is nothing wrong with me, that’s the whole point! What I thought it was wrong with me in the past, it’s maybe related to a different way of being accepting it made my life already much better... but again, I don’t think my parents want to see this new version of me because I don’t fit anymore the role they gave me. 

It was so clear when a priest, a friend of my family, came for dinner on day 3. He asked me how it came that I was so quiet. The reason was simple. Everybody at that table knew that I’m queer and that I have a girlfriend and that I live with her for 2,5 years now. However that wasn’t mention at all. 

I don’t like to create a scene so I shut down, that was the easiest thing to do. So he asked me about my work and I explained that I work for this app that connect neighbours, so he proceed to explain me how this kind of things kill the human relation because they don’t force people to go out and be social. 

I tried to explain that there are people that needs these tools in order to enter slowly into a social relation with strangers, but nothing. 

I let him talk because I didn’t care about his opinion. Here it’s always like that: “or this way or the high way”. 

Everybody must be forced to be social in the same way, no differences are allowed and if you’re different you have to mask. 

Yesterday I was sitting there and just masking, hiding and so aware that nobody was interested in me as I am, but just in me as I was supposed to be 

My father didn’t care why I think I might have ADHD, my mother keep repeating the same narrative about my life even if I told her multiple times that those are not real things, that I’m happy and serene the way I am now, the priest wanted to convinced me that I need to go “deeper” in my life (he said that) ignoring that understanding, loving and accepting myself is exactly what I did in these years abroad and that’s why I’m happy now. 

My dad used to tell me stories. Not made up storie. Memories, episodes of his life, historical facts, plots of movies or books that I was to young to watch or read.  

This is one of my best memory. 

Here I am. The day of the trip, the first day of visiting my family in my hometown: Rome. 

The travel went smooth and I arrived safe. My parents are thrilled by having me here. On my side I miss already my quiet house in the Netherlands and I don’t know how I gonna survive 15 days without my girlfriend (because we’re dramatic!). 

I’m happy that they are happy, but I’m already fed up with my mother. I’m home from 3 hours and I’ve already got this comments:

- “These jackets don’t look good on you” (commenting on a new blazer that I love!);

- “Are you wearing that? That’s a t-shirt for home!”  (commenting on a white t-shirt. This t-shirt is a normal woman t-shirt. It’s shaped - not squared, I mean it’s shaped for women - and it’s totally ok to wear it on jeans when you want to be casual). I changed into a dress ‘cause for a moment I didn’t have the strength to fight it, my mood dropped...at the end the dress was ok because it’s superwarm here;

- “What you’re wearing for our wedding anniversary?” - *me showing a nice new dress*, my mom: “No pants? Pants make you skinner than dresses”;

My fragile self-esteem creaked, but didn’t break. I’m trying to repeat to myself (and to her, but she doesn’t listen) that I want to feel good and pretty doesn’t matter what her opinion is. 

My instinct is to hide again. To lower my standard, to cover up so people don’t see me. This is not fair. I’m fine, I’m healthy and I’m totally ok with my body. 

I gained weight in the last year (pandemic!) and I’ve a superslow metabolism (diagnosed medical condition) so my going back to work out is bringing results but slowly and you know what? That’s ok!

Finally I’m starting to see that my body is getting toned and that it’s responding! Slower than normal? Who cares, I’m proud of me! I’m working out from 4 to 6 days per week, sometimes I do better, sometimes not. But I don’t want to wait for later to feel good. 

I’m actually feeling amazing now. Some of my old “pains” (backpains, bad knees and wrists) are gone, I put on muscle and I feel strong again. 

So it’s very hard for me to come back here having my mom who doesn’t stop to be toxic while I’m in the middle of my feeling good, having new dresses and want to be pretty. I tried to explain it to her and she says “yeah, sure whatever”. 

My sister lost so much weight during the last year (she has been obese for more than 10 years having heart condition and other problems)... after a suicide attempt and lots of work, she finally realize that she loves herself and she lost 40 kilos! This wasn’t about beauty it was about: I love myself, I need to lose weight because my body needs to heal. It worked! The heart is fine and she recovered from the other conditions caused by the obesity.  

My mom just said “eh, your sister gain some weight again”... oh my god woman! Just look at the fucking bigger picture! Those 5 kilos my sister gained back are nothing, NOTHING! We are not numbers on a scale and numbers on a scale don’t tell us if we’re pretty or not. 

When I see plus size models I always think “oh they are gorg”, I never see their size as a problem, the confidence they have makes them already supergorgeous!

If you have read my previous blogposts you know that I’m about to face a 15 days “vacay” to my hometown, visiting my parents and family. 

For so many different reason this is causing lots of anxiety and I’m preparing myself to some toxic talk about my weight, my sexual orientation, my stepping away from the Catholic Church and some “hard to hear/negative” things like how my parents will be dying soon, how my father is depressed, how they are old etc...

So here there are the coping mechanisms that I’m preparing to survive in those days:

- Support of friends and girlfriend: My GF is one phone call away and I know she is always there for me. My friends also are always a great support. Hanging out with the old gang in Italy will help;

- Writing: Tumblr will be my main writing spot, but I subscribed also to a creative writing course for short stories, this might help;

- Working: I took some days off, but I’ll keep working from there, at least I keep myself busy;

- Meditation: I’m not very good at it, but in Italy I know that this will be a very nice way to calm me down and to acknowledge my emotions;

- Netflix, books, tik tok: I’ve download a book of Stephen King on my e-reader and I’m waiting to start reading it on the plane. Stephen King is an author (one of my favorite) that can completely isolate me from the reality. Tik tok and Netflix are also a way to emotionally isolate;

- Fidgeting toys: I don’t know if I actually have ADHD, but I have very strong traits of it and some coping mechanisms used in ADHD therapy work for me pretty well. Fidgeting toys help me to focus, calm down and avoid to snap; 

- Acknowledging of me: I know myself, I know my emotions and now I know how to deal with them. It’ll be hard, I’ll cry, I’ll feel defeat and sad sometimes, but I know also that good time will be there and I’ll have to cherish them. 

All this makes me sad, going to visit my parents should be just a source of joy and I’m sorry that our relationship now it looks mostly as a test, they want to demonstrate that I did wrong moving abroad and I’m overdoing to demonstrate the opposite. 

If they would make the effort to see how happy I am with my life, how satisfied I am, then everything would be easier. Because I love them and I love most of the time spent with them, but I’m always on the edge of “waiting for a toxic comment to come out”.