What do you really miss?

by Lorena Gobbi January 28, 2021

1I find that complaining is an unhealthy habit: it doesn’t do any good to ourselves and especially to the unlucky ones who would have to put up with us. So I try not to whine, not to spread unnecessary negativity (as far as possible, and we can always do better) because I think about the person who is listening to me on the other end of the phone… I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes, I can barely stand the overflow of complaints, moaning and recrimination. However, today - almost a year from when everyone’s lives were changed, shaken, sadly even subverted and sometimes ruined - I sometimes get a little melancholy and so I asked myself: what do I really miss? What did I miss this past year? But what I REALLY MISSED: no endless, insignificant lists… I definitely miss the lunches with my parents and my sisters, the ones where you know when you start but you don’t know when you’ll finish, the ones where someone rolls from the table to the sofa, but anyway no one gets up before it gets dark. I miss the romantic dinners at the restaurant, just me and my better half. I miss the tablefuls of friends, the gatherings on the sofa and the warm hugs. I miss those 15-day trips overseas with just a mini carry-on in the cabin. I miss riding a scooter in Greece with the wind hitting my face. I miss new cities, seen with the eyes of a child in front of the candy stall. But travelling isn’t the only thing I miss - perhaps it’s what a lot of people miss, more than anything else - I miss the Friday afternoons with my daughter, when we went sightseeing in Milan, we visited museums, churches and monuments, and then we went to one of our favourite pastry shops for a perfect ending. I also miss the fact that before the lockdown she was still my little girl, and now she’s a teenager, almost all grown up, and she tells me weird things… by combining the “bomber jacket” with fashion brands (which are very popular among TEENS) that sell completely different items. For those of you who don’t know, the bomber jacket was born in the early 1900s for airplane pilots and later on it had a sportier phase for basketball players, but it’s basically known for what it was in the ‘90s: military green, orange inside, elastic fabric bands around the waist and the wrists… and, for goodness’ sake, NOT QUILTED or with other strange seam lines. In my opinion, certain words cannot be put together: “bomber jacket” and “down jacket”, “electronic” with “cigarette”, it’s a bit like saying “warm beer” (you are only allowed if you are Massimo Ciavarro hitting on Eleonora Giorgi in Sapore di Mare 2) or “white sock” (in my opinion you are only allowed if you are Andre Agassi at Wimbledon in 1992). My mind has got a way of thinking that is not able to accept them. But back to us. I made soupe à l’oignon a few weeks ago because I also miss the French Alps, not because I’m a huge mountain lover, but because, with the complicity of the cold, the snow and the soup, I can drink lots of red wine without feeling too guilty. The thing is: the soup was good and the red wine too, but my desire for snow-capped mountains didn’t go away. So I started to complain (see above) and I added a little bit of everything, even things that I was already missing before, regardless of this last year of my life, but you know, when melancholy comes and it’s washed down with wine, things get ugly… But luckily the carefree part of me arrived, it turned on the music, made me dance and took away my melancholy. So yes, I know, I miss and we miss a lot of things, but let’s look around carefully because, luckily, we still have a couple of good things left. Cheers.href="https://www.visitdenmark.it/danimarca/cosa-fare/hygge" title="hygge">Hygge per tutti.