I moved to Italy at 21.

Bologna, to be exact

Fresh faced

Bright eyed

A little scared

Ok, a lot scared.

But ready to fall deeper in love with a country I’d had such a lust for, for as long as I could remember

I learnt a thousand things that year

How to order a coffee properly

What deep loneliness felt like

What a true depth of friendship looked like

I learnt how big the world could be

How much I loved limoncello

& how to play the guitar

I learnt about history

And art

And the joyful slowness of the Italian way

About the ways of Italian families

The stress of Italian football

And the ever-appropriateness of gelato

But most of all

I learnt that the way I had seen my body

My entire life

Was wrong

And mean to myself

And so narrow sighted

I learnt the way I had been brought up by my culture to see my female form was

So

Absurd

There is no other word.

There is no other word for the way I had been taught that I must strive for perfection, before I even knew what that perfect must look like

all by a society of adults imposing the same beliefs on themselves

– – – – 

I remember the first time we wandered into the gym changing rooms

Into a flurry of Italian women of every shape, size, curve, slant, sexuality

Naked

Fully naked

Could not have been more naked.

Doing their hair

Changing their clothes

Discussing their families

Moisturising their skin

Walking to the showers

Laughing amongst themselves

We, fully clothed from the Italian wintery weather, were the odd women out.

You know that saying when people are nervous to publicly speak? ‘Just imagine everyone naked’

That was the world we had entered, unbeknownst to us, in all its literal sense

It was startling, unusual, uncomfortable

Over the weeks that followed, we became accustomed to it

Of course one notices a naked body.

But the Italian women didn’t fuss about it.

It didn’t faze them.

They weren’t exactly revelling in it, but they also weren’t awkwardly and embarrassingly racing for their towels at the sight of a breast.

Or a bush.

It just wasn’t an issue.

Over the months that followed, so many parts of my understanding of sexuality and sensuality and sexiness and femininity reached a brand new clarity.

These women were fabulous and expected to be treated as such.

And out on the streets, the men stared.

They stared because the women exuded an unrivalled confidence.

A confidence that demanded attention.

And I learnt that these women were expecting to be stared at.

(not in a leery way of course)

But stared at because they were so full of vibrancy and passion that you couldn’t look away.

And because they weren’t afraid of their bodies in a mirror.

– – – –

When you see a thousand different body types a week, yours seems to blend into the crowd.

It’s liberating

Every Body is different

Right there in front of your eyes

And you can’t help but realise how stunning women are when they trust their bodies to be beautiful

By the end of my year, my body had been naked in a room of women more times than I could count.

I had sat in saunas with dear friends and discussed our lives, all the while forgetting that we were more than emotionally exposed

I had learnt to walk tall in a room, incidentally where no one was looking at me, without fearing that I would be judged or critiqued or considered anything other than another woman.

That year gave me the keys to a freedom and acceptance I had never known

A peep into how your body could be a home for you

A safe place

A loved place

A place that deserved to be seen.

I have lived around the world now. I’ve met hundreds of women, many young and anxious about their place in it all.

And I wish that every time I hear her scorn her skin or bastardise her body… every time I do the same to my own…that I could plonk us both back into that changing room. To sit, or stand, in our awkwardness and fear until it released us.

Because it does release you.

The same way the physiotherapist presses on your tight muscles so hard they hurt, until all of a sudden, they don’t anymore.

– – – – 

There are so many parts of my life that have the residue of that year all over them.

My love of Limoncello remains

Bologna feels like a secret world that keeps a part of my heart always

I still fiddle with a guitar now and then and can still talk of Italian art and history.

The friend who taught me the depth of a friend’s love and swiftness of a deep connection is still a dear dear confidante of mine.

But more than anything else that I can articulate, Italy made me a woman.

It was my own coming of age story.

In the changing rooms.

Of an Italian gym.

At 21.