Countdown Begins

After 7 months of being told “your papers will come any day now…”
After 960 unanswered phone calls to The Godfather…
After 2 summer moves to homes that aren’t actually ours…
After 6 excursions to the Italian Consulate…
After 38 emotional upheavals in the last week alone…
…the real countdown begins:

6 days until we leave for Italy.

Naturally, my brain has been replaced by a kaleidoscope. Cheerful orange elation clashes with deep purple worry, which keeps running headlong into clean green practicality, which occasionally shifts into an absurd yellow panic. And then there are the sudden revelations speckling across my vision like a TV gone haywire:
We won’t get Mac ‘n’ Cheese in Italy! (How will we ever survive?)
I’m going to be delivering this baby in a foreign country! (Do they know about C-sections over there?)
Italians speak Italian! (Why, oh why didn’t I put more effort into becoming fluent?)
We’re leaving behind some of the best friends we’ve ever had! (How have I never realized how much I’ll miss them?)

But then my less-placenta-brained husband reminds me of that day three years ago in Venice when we talked about throwing away our return tickets. And then I remember early morning bike rides and noontime strolls through the open markets and lazy afternoon drinks in the piazzas, sunset walks through the parks and hilarious late night gatherings in the pizzerias. I remember how effortlessly the Italians talk, their whole bodies animated with the joy of carrying on conversations. I remember the lovely winding roads and the rolling hills lined with grapevines. I remember the pizza and the pasta and the coffee and the wine and the chocolate.

And then all the pesky, swarming details seem less than important because, hey — we’re moving to Italy!