Who is the Mad Italian?

The Mad Italian

I first heard that phrase when my good friend (who is now called hubby) introduced me to one of his friends, who upon our introduction exclaimed So you’re the Mad Italian!

I never questioned the fact that he had a name for me. I remember asking him about it and he just said Because you are. And I understood. We really were one of those annoying couples back then. Our friendship was purely platonic. To us. It took us a few years to figure out what our friends already knew. We’d been an old married couple, with a shared language, from the start.

The Mad Italian was his way of describing what he saw in me. A Dreamer with a huge amount of Passion, Conviction and Craziness mixed in with an overwhelming Childlike Wonder.

His description made me feel Proud. It was his full acceptance of me that set me on the path of self acceptance.

It wasn’t always that way.

Being a first generation Australian, my growing up years were not easy. Not quite knowing where I belonged culturally led to me not having a sense of belonging. So I would escape from the outside world into the wonderful world of my imagination. It was safe there. Oh the wonderful places I would visit while the teacher was talking! Until I heard a voice from another dimension Sarina! What did I just say?? followed by confusion as I crash landed into reality, then realisation of where I was as I looked into the stern face of the teacher and heard the sniggers of the children around me.

They called me Dreamboat back then.

I didn’t like it.

Now I own it!

Because now I belong. But I didn’t always belong.

You see, as a first generation Australian, with parents who identified as Australian but were still very much Italian, I didn’t really fit into either culture. Culturally and Socially, I was always on the outer. This, coupled with my family’s cultural belief that a tertiary education was not necessary for a woman, led to me dropping out of secondary school in year 10, when I was not quite 15 years old. There was no need for a tertiary education, nor did I even consider it possible. I couldn’t be both a professional woman and a mother. And I knew that one day I would be a mother.

So I worked in the family business, a deli, until at 18 I was given the opportunity by a family friend to study Beauty Therapy and work in her Salon. This was considered a suitable path of employment for a young Italian woman as it was something she could continue to do from home once she was married with children. And I didn’t question it.

Until the year I turned 23.

That was the year my world turned upside down. The year my father died.

I watched as my mother struggled to gain an education and rebuild her life at the age of 42, and struggled for answers as she cried and questioned why God would take her soul mate, while her friend was trapped in a loveless abusive marriage.

Everything I had learnt about life as a woman was shattered in that year.

I decided that I would never rely on a man. In fact, I even began to question my dream of building a beautiful family with a soul mate. I figured there was no point, either I’d meet the man of my dreams and he would die on me, or I’d meet the man of my dreams and he’d turn out to be a bastard. Either way I was going to get hurt. And I wasn’t prepared to sign up for that.

So I sat the mature aged entrance exam and enrolled in University. Graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Social Sciences was an incredibly proud moment for me, especially as I had never done so well at school. But it was more than a personal achievement. Being the first to achieve a tertiary education on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family, signified the fulfillment of the dreams and sacrifices, made by both sets of grandparents, in leaving behind their lives in Italy to create a better future for their descendants.

Writing was always a source of comfort and release to me, a place where I would always belong, because it was the place I created. I had always talked to God, even as young as five I remember knowing and feeling that supernatural presence. My faith became stronger in the years after my father died, as my talking to God became writing to God. It was through writing that my answers came.

Nature has also been a strong inspiration to me. I have found Peace and Guidance through the most difficult moments of my life when I’ve been either sitting on a rock on the hillside, a stream below me and trees above me, or sitting on the beach at sunset. These are the moments where I feel closest to God, where I can drown out the sound of the world and retreat into myself and really connect with the child who lives within me.

Growing up, I learnt that others didn’t appreciate the child.

Grow Up!

You’re so immature!

You’re too much!

Stop wearing your heart on your sleeve!

Tone it down!

You’re too deep!

These messages and more caused me to hide her away. She was an embarrassment.

Eventually I found the one place where it was safe to let the child out. In my home, with my soulmate and my children.

And then my children grew and I learnt things about them. I learnt that they were gifted and talented. They were Creative.

Creative!

That was it! I had found my place!

I wanted to nurture the Creative in my children, and who better to help me than the child in me. The one I’d kept hidden because the world didn’t understand her.

And that’s when I discovered that I would never be able to accept me unless I accepted her. Slowly I let her out to play. She is happiest when she’s allowed out to play. When she comes out to play she shows me Wonder, because she’s free to focus on the little things. She shows me Peace, because life for her is less complicated. And she shows me Self Acceptance because she’s so blissfully unaware of what other people think of her.

It’s through her Acceptance that I have realised how very blessed my life truly is, and has been.

It’s through her Sensitivity that I allow myself to experience every emotion, from the depths of despair to the heights of pure joy and delight. Because every emotion is meaningful and has purpose.

It’s through her Wonder that I am able to engage all of my senses to fully experience the beauty that is found in the detail.

It’s because of her penchant for not looking, or thinking, before she leaps that I have found myself in some embarrassing situations.

And it’s because of her weird sense of humour that I can laugh about it!