Too lazy to change

My friend Nicola, a few weeks ago, referenced this post of mine and wrote about Bitonto, the town where he lives. I admire and almost envy the way he described it. You can clearly tell that, somehow, it’s his roots and that those roots engage him.

I was born in Naples but have always lived¹ in a small town in the province of Caserta that borders the province of Naples itself. I’ve never loved my town. I don’t love its people, I don’t love its spaces, I don’t love its squares, places, the services it doesn’t have, the damaged roads, the parks abandoned and closed for decades, the facilities for young people that, uhm, there are no facilities for young people, sorry. There’s nothing, except family.

In my town I sleep. I only sleep there. I don’t go out there, I don’t do my shopping there, and I don’t go to the gym there. My daughter doesn’t attend school there, and neither my partner nor I work there. I don’t even have coffee at the bar in my town. I just sleep there, and that’s it.

And why don’t you leave, you might ask? Because of the family I mentioned above. For my daughter’s grandparents and for the aunts and uncles who are close to her. For the school, for my lifelong friends and those of my partner. I don’t leave because of the emotional bonds. Without those, I’d pack up and run away.

Maybe it’s also laziness; I can’t deny it. I have my house (comfortable), I have my things and my spaces (welcoming), I have the short distance from work (useful), and changing is exhausting. And it would force me to give up something. And I, unmotivated, don’t want to give up anything.

In short, there are dozens of places I would move to. And maybe, who knows? Never say never. But the fear of losing what we have, despite the place where we live, paralyzes us.

It takes courage to change. And I, from this point of view, must admit it: I don’t have any.