‘Ciao’ means hello and goodbye

I broke up with Rome a little over a month ago. It was amicable really, the type of breakup where you suggest you “stay on good terms” and see if you can “make it work in the future if the timing is right” because “we have the rest of our lives to figure it out.” The way I left that city in a sleepless haze, lugging suitcases packed with mementos (hot priest calendars, counterfeit AS Roma gear, too many sweaters) was heartbreaking, but somehow empowering.

I didn’t want to know what was happening probably because it felt like leaving. It felt like “ciao.” It felt like the type of “ciao” that meant goodbye and not hello (and maybe goodbye for a long, long time).

I don’t know how we did it, packing our lives in suitcases and shoving souvenirs into pockets we didn’t even know existed. And just like that, we said “ciao” to security guards and assistant rectors and cleaning staff. We said “ciao” to a place that became our home, a city that welcomed us even when we were confused, bad at Italian and, in some cases, getting mugged at the Colosseum (or the Pantheon or the Trevi Fountain). 

Just like that, we soared 36,000 feet into the air across an ocean. Just like that, we landed back home, aching with remembrance of a time when speaking English might have been embarrassing. 

I was in denial for weeks, entertaining the possibility that I had re-entered some alternate dimension (America) where everyone speaks my language (English) and no one gets annoyed when you order coffee (overpriced maple vanilla latte) past noon. 

Even so, the more I’m in this alternate dimension, the more real it feels. The dining hall raspberry iced tea, which only ever gives me the highest of sugar highs, the warm smiles from loose acquaintances whose names I’ve definitely forgotten and the weather, which is currently a warm, wonderful 33 degrees and cloudy with a chance of might-slip-and-eat-it on the way to class tomorrow morning. 

Now that I’m here, where the wind chill is the only thing I care about and my outfits aren’t as impeccable, I sometimes wonder if Rome was all a dream, a 4-month long Sleeping Beauty-type sleep (only minus the part where you’re awakened by a kiss from an extremely hot man). I also wonder if this was all a dream, this Notre Dame life that feels like extra strong drinks from bars I can’t get into and hand-me-down shirts from Abercrombie & Fitch. This life feels so familiar, only now electric scooters are banned (thank God) and the second floor of LaFun looks like the actual gates of heaven. 

Sometimes I swear I’m six hours behind where my body wants me to be and 4,758 miles from the place I swear I left a part of my soul/dignity (Camden Town Pub). Even though the jet lag and denial have all worn off, I still feel like I’m back in Rome when I close my eyes or when I talk to someone who’s been there or when I glance over at the hot priest calendar above my desk (Father Giovanni, you are looking good today).

In all seriousness though, saying goodbye to Rome will probably always feel like unfinished business. It will probably always linger like a first love and a first heartache.

My last goodbyes abroad felt like that, like a lingering, whispering, breathless oath: I promise I’ll come back to you, Rome. 

I promise I’ll come back to you, late-night strolls to the Pantheon, cigarettes I watched friends roll on balconies. I promise I’ll come back to you, sunsets at St. Peter’s, bartenders who pour baby Guinness shots. I promise I’ll come back to you, paper prayers at Santa Maria, women who wear their hair wild. I promise I’ll come back to you, pigeons who lack personal space, Powerade that tastes like pee, baristas who say things like “ciao bella” (because compliments aren’t all that strange). 

But even while I’m still navigating the goodbyes and the promises, I’ve learned that the truth about goodbyes is that they’re full of “hellos.”

So hello, Notre Dame, Indiana. It’s good to be back. It’s good to be back where parietals still exist, drinking is suddenly illegal and friends are planning spelling bee pregames. It’s good to be back where stale inside jokes are still being spewed, even when it’s been 2 years since their inception. It’s good to be back where I fear walking into Duncan Student Center on a Sunday morning because I might have girlbossed too close to the sun on a Saturday night (true story). It’s good to be back because here is home, and it’s not Rome, but that’s okay because “we have the rest of our lives to figure it out.” 

Kate Casper (aka, Casper, Underdog or Jasmine) is from Northern Virginia. She strives to be the best waste of your time. You can contact her at kcasper@nd.edu.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.