ALL GOOD THINGS

By Larry & Arlene on Mar 16, 2024 in Blog | 9 comments

      ALL GOOD THINGS The year 2023 ended not long ago and with it, we marked a decimal milestone. A little over ten years ago, we decided to leave the country in which we had lived our lives, to launch into an unknown future in a different culture, becoming foreigners living in Italy. In this fortunate instance, positive expectations have worked out just fine. Baring the always unforeseen, we are so pleased with the experience so far, we plan to remain immigrant residents in this provincial town in Central Italy that we love. In the process of uprooting ourselves, the idea surfaced to start a journal to keep track of what were bound to be significant changes over a relatively short period of time.  And so it was, Gelatojournal was started. In addition to providing a memory bank for us, the other collateral benefit we hoped it might achieve if we made it available on-line, was to keep family and friends informed without endless repetition of similar separate communications. What surprised us was the consequence of the wide outreach of information posted on-line. Before long, we began receiving messages from people we had never met, situated in a wide variety of locations world-wide, inquiring about aspects of our experience. It seems our quest to reinvent ourselves in later life was also striking a resonant chord with some other people. Over the years of posting Gelatojournal, we have had communication with an assortment of interesting people. With some, it was a pleasant but brief interaction. Some other communication became more interactive for years, exploring the concerns of others as they asked themselves if they might also risk the expatriate adventure. And then, some people we had exchanged thoughts with actually came to Ascoli for a visit, and we were able to connect faces with emails. Over time, a few Americans also came to Ascoli to live in search of new experiences unique to them, just as we had. Ten-year periods of time bring changes. Now, unambiguously considered ‘senior citizens’, the last ten years have brought a few changes along the way. Some externally imposed such as pandemics in which we were fortunate to avoid direct participation. Although chronologically...