Salerno.

Michael, as it turns out, was actually from Sweden and had been living in Salerno for about 2 years. He moved here because he likes the slower Italian lifestyle. He is dressed quite fine, with tight jeans and a blazer, clearly putting in more effort than I’m used to with American men. He speaks excellent English and Italian in addition to his native language, and for the most part I can understand our conversation in the bustling restaurant while we eat. I find myself very intrigued.

Red wine with seafood, what a faux pas! But I wanted red wine. And sea food.

He tells me about a wine bar down the street, and says he is heading there after dinner (he would later admit he had already been to the wine bar before dinner, but he just wanted an excuse to keep our evening together going). I ask if I can join him, so we finish our dinner and head down the street. Michael seems to know everyone – the waiters at the restaurant, the server at the wine bar, friends in the street. He is amiable and makes me feel genuinely at ease.

He wants to take me on a tour of Salerno, because he knows the best view in the city. My mind wanders back to the recommendations of all my guy friends from back home who made me promise I wouldn’t wander off with random Italian guys… but then I think of all my girlfriends who were more than encouraging of potential Italian escapades and asked that I just to listen to my gut to keep me safe. My gut was telling me this guy was a good one, so I’m going with the liberated feminine inspiration tonight! I am here seeking freedom and self-discovery, after all.

We wander the dark streets of Salerno, and Michael points out landmarks and tells me about the history of Salerno. We wind our way through the narrow streets to make our way to one of the highest points in the city where you can look down over the water. As we walk, I joke with him that I’m breaking my promise to not wander off with strange men, and he laughs and promises he will take care of me.

Nighttime view from the top of Salerno, Italy.

After several sets of stairs, we finally reach the view, and it is absolutely magnificent! My iPhone camera certainly doesn’t do it justice, but it takes my breath away. I’m suddenly very glad I followed my heart on this adventure. Michael looks me in the eye, and I can feel that we both want to kiss, but there is mutual hesitation. I think to myself, yes, he is certainly one of the good ones. And I’m so far removed from dating, I couldn’t trust myself in the moment that the tension was real. He takes my hand instead and says he would like to walk down to the water now, so that we can look up to see the second best view in the city of a castle on top of the mountain. We slowly wind our way back down the streets of Salerno, hand-in-hand, all the way to the water’s edge. He points back up, and I see the gorgeous view of the castle lit up at night.

View of Arechi Castle, Salerno, Italy

In that moment, he turns towards me and leans in for a gentle kiss. The kiss is perfect – sweet, tender, and inviting, and I lean into his body and wrap my arms around him, breathing him in. It feels incredible to submit to my desires. We both want it, and I feel a release of emotions as I kiss him. This is definitely part of the liberation I came here to find. Being in a foreign country where no one knows me and without a reputation to uphold, I feel blissfully free.

For so much of my life, I have struggled with my sensuality. It was a huge sticking point in my marriage, the elephant in the room if you will. According to Andy, we never had enough sex (ah, the age old marital strife). And the pressure to have sex was always present, sometimes spoken and sometimes unspoken (yet so heavy I could barely breathe). I was in a routine of forcing myself to keep it up, just enough to try to keep the tension down. It had been this way for almost a decade (since even before we got married). But like so many women, I had received the messaging that it was my duty to provide in that way. And that the other parts of a relationship are far more important than sex. Andy was safe, secure, and loving, so the fact that I didn’t have sexual desires was totally normal, right? I think I had always used sex as a tool to keep a relationship going. I had never tried to connect to my own desires. I mean sure, I’ve orgasmed plenty, but my orgasms were always for the man I was with, to make sure he knew he did a good job. The orgasms felt great, but they weren’t really for me.

I had become so withdrawn in my marriage because of the constant pressure of sex that I had stopped all intimate contact. It felt as though Andy saw everything as an invitation to push for sex, so I avoided hugs, kisses, even changing clothes in front of him. We had zero intimacy, because I was terrified to do anything that might arouse him or imply that I wanted sex when I didn’t. Andy wanted me to see a doctor, start antidepressants, remove my IUD, anything that might “fix” my lack of desire. He told me once that I must have been born with something disconnected in that way, that some people just have lower libidos. It made me feel broken. I felt as though I needed to fix my ability to be a better mom and I needed to fix my libido.

Finally, about 1.5 years before we separated, I told Andy that I did not want to have sex anymore until I felt the desire to do so. I needed to take that off the table in an effort to release that constant pressure. But I never felt the desire, so we never had sex again… or any other form of intimacy for that matter. I genuinely hoped that if the pressure was removed, I might find my way back to him. But there was so much wrong with our relationship, all entirely unspoken, that the way back felt impossible.

So here I was, in Italy, kissing an unfamiliar man, completely uninhibited and absolutely full of desire. Maybe I wasn’t so broken after all.

Landed.

The Balcony at my apartment in Salerno, Italy.

I arrived in Italy to start my two-week solo journey. It feels isolating to not speak any Italian, but I am proud that I managed to get from the airport to my apartment considering I have zero travel experience.

After major flight delays, a bus, and a train, I finally arrived in Salerno, Italy! I am exhausted. This is the first stop of my 2-week whirlwind journey through Italy. I tried to learn some Italian before I arrived, but it turns out a couple months of Duolingo doesn’t make much difference. Thank goodness most people speak some English, and everyone has been friendly and helpful so far.

I took a quick shower, and set off for dinner. I hadn’t eaten much during the last 16 hours of travel, so I was starving! After a quick google search, I realized 5:30 pm was unfortunately too early for an Italian dinner. I found one restaurant that looked delicious and would open soon at 6:30 pm - Osteria Angolo Masuccio. I decided to take a walk and explore Salerno to pass the time.

I made it to the restaurant shortly after they opened, and the host seated me at a small table just inside the door. My waiter was putting on an Italian show, kissing my hand, pushing in my chair, and all the exaggerated Italian gestures. I asked him what his favorite thing on the menu was, and he recommended the mussels over pasta.

I was feeling lonely, and a bit overwhelmed after the endless day of travel. I was trying to breathe through the slight anxiety that began to bubble up when I realized I would be completely alone for the next 2 weeks. I hadn’t been alone in… I couldn’t even begin to guess. Maybe never, really. I pulled out my journal to keep me occupied, to help me feel less alone, and so I could start processing all the emotions that brought me to Italy in the first place.

An excerpt from my Italy journal:

May 30, 2024: “Long day of travel yesterday. I’m tired but pleased to have made it!

Mantra: I am confident. I am safe. This will transform me.

I have been reading a book that stirs up the emotions of my parenting. I have so many emotions that I need to release surrounding the way I have mothered. I have been short-tempered and at the end of my rope for so long. I have tried to control my kids since day one, and it has been detrimental to my relationship with them… and with myself. It is the root of so much anxiety. I want to release that control.

I am becoming myself. I know this has been a non-traditional path to get here, but I am accepting that is part of the process. I am releasing the stuck emotions. These may be the…”

And at that moment, my journal entry was interrupted when the Italian waiter insisted on taking my pen and signing my journal - Fabio. He was definitely over-the-top in the Italian way!

I must admit that while I was journaling, I noticed they had seated a man at the table next to me. He was alone, and caught my eye. He seemed quite friendly with the waiters, speaking Italian to them with ease as if he came to the restaurant often. He didn’t look Italian, though, with blonde hair and fair skin. It piqued my curiosity, but I’m not usually one to strike up a conversation.

Fabio the waiter had other plans. He introduced me to the man - Michael.
“Have you met Michael? Michael, have you met… what is your name?”
“Sally.”
“Michael, this is Sally”

I was nervous to strike up conversation, but I am here to expand myself and genuinely hoped to make connections and learn to liberate myself. For the last several weeks, I found myself unusually confident and more aligned with my true self. I was trying to continue to hold that vibration while on this trip, despite the sneaking anxiety of solitude in a foreign country. I thought “what do I have to lose?” and turned to have a conversation with Michael…

The beginning of my travels. Stepping onto the airplane in Asheville, NC, full of anticipation!

I feel I should give some background as to how I ended up in Italy in the first place.

About 6 weeks prior, on April 15th 2024, I moved out of the house I shared with my husband to start the process of divorce. My relationship with Andy had become increasingly distant in the last year, but if I look back further there were countless indications for the past 7 years that the relationship needed a transformation.

It began when we decided to start a family, and I took on the role of stay-at-home mom and he the role of sole provider. I had no idea all those years ago, when I sheepishly asked if he felt we could make ends meet with one salary so that I could stay home with our daughter, that it would send me down a path in which I would lose myself entirely. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do, because it was what both our mothers had done.

We had 3 kids in 4 years, and I took on motherhood like it was my job (because, well, it kind of was). I didn’t give myself a break, and I felt guilty if I ever asked for help from anyone – including my husband. I was drowning, and I didn’t even know it. I was a high-performing, perfectionist mom. But I was desperately unhappy and feeling broken and ungrateful, because I couldn’t find fulfillment in motherhood. I thought I must be doing it all wrong, and it must be my fault that I’m disconnected from my kids and my husband. Let me take on the work to fix that, too. Cue the endless hours of therapy so I could work on “being a better mom.” Yeah, that’s what my initial therapy goal was… not to go deep into my own self-worth issues, but please just give me tips on how to stop yelling as much and how to be more patient. I wanted to figure out how to be less stressed in hopes to repair the relationships with my kids.

It hadn’t occurred to me to go deeper for change. That maybe the answer was more indirect. I had never considered that there are other paths apart from the traditional path that was ingrained, the one society tells me “should” bring happiness.

Maybe I just needed some space. Space to slow down and listen to that voice inside me. I had never stopped to listen to her before. That little voice that whispers your true desires.

The desire to go to Italy had been just that, a quiet whisper in my depths.

I first voiced that desire on a weekend with my girlfriends in September 2023 the previous fall. That was the first time I had been away from my kids for an overnight… and my oldest was almost 7. During that weekend, as I expressed some of my difficulties with motherhood, one of my friends asked me what would bring me joy right now, just anything that comes to mind. I started to cry, and said I know it sounds stupid, but I really just want to be able to go to Italy. I’m not sure why I even said it or why I was crying about it, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. And it felt absurd, because I knew I could never do that. Who would take care of my kids? I could barely get away for 2 days to come on this weekend trip.

I know now that I was crying because Italy represented so much more that just a trip. It was the freedom to become myself. Freedom to choose an alternate path.

Saying those words out loud was the first step. It took time and a lot of self-work and self-reflection, but I slowly began to awaken to the fact that I was the one who decided I couldn’t. So doesn’t that mean that I also have the power to decide that I could? I just needed to make a little more space for myself in this life.

I am called to share my journey of awakening and the path that brought me here, because I know I am not alone. I know that so many other moms feel stuck in a life where they have lost themselves. I want to inspire other women to step into their purpose and discover what brings them joy, passion, and creativity. I want to encourage moms to make space for themselves and release the guilt that often comes with putting ourselves first.

Mom Needs Space.