I was 18 years old. I'd grown up in the country - Buckinghamshire and Devon - and I was living in the city. Everything was beautiful and it was made more beautiful by the fact that the vast majority of the people with whom I surrounded myself were Italian. Grampa's dream was coming true.
From September 1978 until May or June 1979 I was in my first year of study. I didn't do any work. I didn't have to, remember? Languages were my thing. I could do it in my sleep. Besides ... I was too busy trying to learn how to be an Italian.
In the middle of this new world, I met a lady. A lovely lady with whom I fell in love. Of course she was Italian. Her name was Mina. Mina Matania. She was beautiful - and I imagine she still is - and, young and all as I was, I had decided that I wanted to spend my life with her. Of course a lifetime to an 18 year old is short but I was sincere. I believed myself to be in love with her.
I had all the symptoms. Shortness of breath; total lack of concentration; irregular heartbeat; compulsive obsessive behaviour; intense feelings that tear your guts apart; really intense feelings that made me feel like I was truly alive.
She let me down gently and for that I am eternally grateful. I ended up apologizing for superimposing on her an ideal that it was probably unfair to superimpose on her. She was beautiful though. She wrote me a lovely letter that I am ashamed to say I no longer have and told me that emotions are never to be undervalued, no matter what the circumstances.
I picked myself up, dusted myself off and decided to start again. My Pinocchioesque quest to become a real Italian would start again. I am fortunate that I was born an optimist and even though I cried over Mina's letter, it was never going to lay me low.
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