Veletta D'Venezia... "growing up"
Despite only being 25, I often think that my “wild” days are all behind me.
While in college, I lived in one of the most exclusive and popular houses on campus. At my school (as we were so small) we lived in houses of approximately 32 people, and I lived on the best street, in the best house, where people were willing to live with room-mates sometimes through their third year just to get to stay in the house. They were known for throwing the best parties, playing the best pranks, being a tight-knit group where they really loved each other and looked out for one another… And I got put there in my first year by sheer happenstance.
I don’t drink. Like, at all. I have maybe a couple drinks a year, and I really do mean that. I gotten drunk ONCE in my entire life, and then promptly forgot two-and-a-half hours of my life. Every time my friends tell the story, a new piece of the tale is revealed. I seriously can’t remember ANY OF IT. But luckily it’s a fun story, so it gets told often, so I imagine the whole thing will come together eventually.
Often I was asked “Why don’t you cut loose more?” or “How come you never_______?” and the truth is? It just didn’t appeal to me. When I was in high school, I think I got most of my ‘precociousness’ out of my system. I all but lead a double-life. My parents never gave me a curfew, because they knew my friends (all of whom were also sober people… One became valedictorian, the other went to an elite college on a volleyball scholarship, the other was a ballet dancer and singer who got the lead in every school play), and they trusted me. They also somewhat really had their hands full with my older sister, and then eventually my younger brother as well. So I showed them what they needed to see: a healthy, well-behaved, quiet daughter who loved to stay in her room and write for hours on end.
The thing is, half the nights they thought I was at home, quietly writing away in my room, I wasn’t even in the house, and the other half I usually wasn’t alone in my room. And despite my friends and I all being sober, that didn’t mean we didn’t get into our share of trouble. It just meant we didn’t do it under the influence. I don’t know if that’s better or worse, now that I think about it?
By the time I got to college, I’d sort of had my fun, and done the whole “living away from my family to be who I am, whatever I decide that’s going to be”-thing, because the truth of the matter is? I got pushed aside and ignored because of the other problems going on with my siblings, and so I sort of have been ‘living on my own’ for a while. I knew who I was, and the concept of being-bad-for-the-fun-of-it had sort of lost that shine. I guess you could say I really did grow up fast.
By my last year of college, I often felt like some sort of den-mother… I took care of the drunk, kept them out of trouble or from killing themselves, and acted as a sort of liaison to campus security; they knew me well by then and trusted me to keep things from getting too out of control. People came to my room in the middle of the night (or any time of day really) to cry on my shoulder, or to talk, or who needed a laugh, or someone who would just listen and not judge. I helped with homework, with advice on how to deal with school bureaucracy, told stories about “the old days” in the community, and I think in a way… They sort of needed that; having someone a little more “grown up” if not actually un-relatable by age or experience.
But when you’re 24-going-on-45? You know something is wrong.
When I was 17, I spent part of the summer on a study program in Florence, and then Rome. For about six weeks I lived in Florence, and I think it was then and there that I was the wildest I’ve ever been. Being in Italy, away from my family and anyone I knew, was a sort of opportunity that I couldn’t let pass up. I was still very much myself-but in an odd way, I was more “me” than I’d ever allowed myself to be before. So, in a way, I learned a lot about who I could be, who I was, and who I wanted to be.
And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to recapture that a bit on this trip.
While in college, I lived in one of the most exclusive and popular houses on campus. At my school (as we were so small) we lived in houses of approximately 32 people, and I lived on the best street, in the best house, where people were willing to live with room-mates sometimes through their third year just to get to stay in the house. They were known for throwing the best parties, playing the best pranks, being a tight-knit group where they really loved each other and looked out for one another… And I got put there in my first year by sheer happenstance.
I don’t drink. Like, at all. I have maybe a couple drinks a year, and I really do mean that. I gotten drunk ONCE in my entire life, and then promptly forgot two-and-a-half hours of my life. Every time my friends tell the story, a new piece of the tale is revealed. I seriously can’t remember ANY OF IT. But luckily it’s a fun story, so it gets told often, so I imagine the whole thing will come together eventually.
Often I was asked “Why don’t you cut loose more?” or “How come you never_______?” and the truth is? It just didn’t appeal to me. When I was in high school, I think I got most of my ‘precociousness’ out of my system. I all but lead a double-life. My parents never gave me a curfew, because they knew my friends (all of whom were also sober people… One became valedictorian, the other went to an elite college on a volleyball scholarship, the other was a ballet dancer and singer who got the lead in every school play), and they trusted me. They also somewhat really had their hands full with my older sister, and then eventually my younger brother as well. So I showed them what they needed to see: a healthy, well-behaved, quiet daughter who loved to stay in her room and write for hours on end.
The thing is, half the nights they thought I was at home, quietly writing away in my room, I wasn’t even in the house, and the other half I usually wasn’t alone in my room. And despite my friends and I all being sober, that didn’t mean we didn’t get into our share of trouble. It just meant we didn’t do it under the influence. I don’t know if that’s better or worse, now that I think about it?
By the time I got to college, I’d sort of had my fun, and done the whole “living away from my family to be who I am, whatever I decide that’s going to be”-thing, because the truth of the matter is? I got pushed aside and ignored because of the other problems going on with my siblings, and so I sort of have been ‘living on my own’ for a while. I knew who I was, and the concept of being-bad-for-the-fun-of-it had sort of lost that shine. I guess you could say I really did grow up fast.
By my last year of college, I often felt like some sort of den-mother… I took care of the drunk, kept them out of trouble or from killing themselves, and acted as a sort of liaison to campus security; they knew me well by then and trusted me to keep things from getting too out of control. People came to my room in the middle of the night (or any time of day really) to cry on my shoulder, or to talk, or who needed a laugh, or someone who would just listen and not judge. I helped with homework, with advice on how to deal with school bureaucracy, told stories about “the old days” in the community, and I think in a way… They sort of needed that; having someone a little more “grown up” if not actually un-relatable by age or experience.
But when you’re 24-going-on-45? You know something is wrong.
When I was 17, I spent part of the summer on a study program in Florence, and then Rome. For about six weeks I lived in Florence, and I think it was then and there that I was the wildest I’ve ever been. Being in Italy, away from my family and anyone I knew, was a sort of opportunity that I couldn’t let pass up. I was still very much myself-but in an odd way, I was more “me” than I’d ever allowed myself to be before. So, in a way, I learned a lot about who I could be, who I was, and who I wanted to be.
And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to recapture that a bit on this trip.