Yesterday my horoscope urged me to get cozy with people and “do not remain outside the castle.” I could really see myself outside that castle. It felt so right. Everybody is in the castle having a good time. I’m outside the thick walls, looking up and unsure what to do. Should I knock at the door and try to get in? Should I stay outside? Should I just go home?
It reminds me of when I moved to Pisa to go to college. I’d just left home for the first time, and I felt very lonely. I rented a room in the house of a crazy family from Naples. From my window I could see the apartment on the other side of the street. There were people going in an out at all times. They would shout from the street, the girls in the apartment would open the window, look down and greet the visitors with laughs and witty remarks. The sound of those windows opening and closing, the laughs and the greetings that were never for me made me feel even more lonely.
That feeling is still with me today. I was sure then that somebody had locked me outside the castle, but now I know that it’s not that simple. I bring that feeling with me, anywhere I go. Even when I’m invited in the castle, some of those thick castle walls follows me, revealing the awkward outsider.
It’s about protection and about not losing myself. It’s about the distance between one person and another and the effort that takes to cover it. It’s about the lack of social efficacy and the fear that my boundaries will be violated. It’s about the intense desire to be with others and the intense desire to be with myself, and the impossibility to find a balance. It’s about feeling vulnerable and the fear to be hurt once again. It’s about the danger that I always feel in the presence of others.
Most of all is about the boundaries between me and the rest of the world: fragile, full of holes, leaking, and kept together by pieces of tape.