Lockdown by Choice

By Nicholas Giammarino | International Food & Culture

The Experience of One Student Who Stayed Behind in the Midst of the Pandemic

I sat down to write this article three times, but to no avail each time. I felt as though I couldn’t accurately capture my emotions with respect to the situation, but now, having just returned home from seeing one of my best friends here for the last time in the foreseeable future, hopefully I can articulate my sentiments and experience. I believe my motivation for staying in Italy during the Lockdown that occurred as a result of the coronavirus is rooted in my youth.

I remember saying many times to my friends that if I didn’t like where my life was going, I would just pick up and move to Italy. Of course, this was said without any real intention behind it. That all changed when I found myself in a situation where this move was possible, albeit only for one year.

Living in Florence was a dream up until the arrival of the coronavirus. I was doing my best to integrate, learn the language my family had lost when they Americanized, and make friends with as many people as possible. When we found out that the program was cancelled, my initial reaction was to feel distraught, which then reshaped itself into anger.

How could this happen to us? I heard a lot of students express their feelings of sadness, and a desire to stay in Florence despite the circumstances; however, no one seemed to make any effort to do this. In the midst of the situation, I found myself pondering my concept of home. I think we are all raised to think of home as the place where we were raised, where our family and the friends of our youth are.

While I understand why this is the case, I thought heavily about my relationship with Florence. In the end, I came to the conclusion that although we have a strong connection with the place where we come from, there is also a profound bond between who we are and the place where we come to adulthood.

Florence will always be the first city that I lived in on my own, away from home, truly paving my own path and becoming independent. For that reason, I felt a responsibility to remain here in the midst of the virus, as a means of demonstrating my support to the city that has provided me with so much. I cannot say that the situation was easy, although it certainly could have been significantly worse.

Frustrations continued to grow as our quarantine was extended over and over again. Our home felt like a softer version of prison, especially as we peered out into the world between the cracks in our window shutters.

Our longing to go back to any type of normality grew as the days passed. Another big blow was struck when we came to the realization that our program would not reopen for summer; we had previously hoped to resume our studies in May.

However, after being in this situation for so long, we chose to tough it out, if for no other reason than to validate all the time we had waited. I must thank my friend Thomas Etter, who chose to stay here with me; without him it would have been extremely difficult to do so. The two months we spent inside taught me a lot about our resiliency as people in regard to how we respond to difficult situations. I was also pleasantly surprised by the comradery that revealed itself during that period; my friends made sure to check in on me periodically, and vice versa.

As the situation improved and we were able to go back out, Florence felt like a completely new city. I had never known it without the thousands of tourists that roam its streets daily. What was previously a large, multicultural society had quickly turned into an Italian city through and through.

I cannot say if I prefer one to the other, they are both beautiful in different ways. Now, as I prepare to return to the U.S., I can say with one hundred percent confidence that I made the right choice for me.

I will forever be grateful for the opportunity I was given to live here, all the things I learned about myself, and about the society, the experiences I had, the friends I made, and the struggles I faced

I would implore anyone given a similar opportunity to take it, whether it be in Italy at the fantastic new FSU Florence Study Center or at another abroad program.