Amidst the cheers over Italy’s soccer triumph, a new chapter begins for one woman–a pause in the revelry as she embraces the role of motherhood.

Motherhood… What’s there not to say about the hot topic. A new war every single day, the toddler years in particular. Summertime in Italy with a three year old boy gets pretty interesting, which leads you to get creative. Finding new ways to challenge him, focusing on cognitive growth and socializing, alongside being bilingual. Huge task to say the least. One of the things my child adores is swimming. I think most children love playing in or with water, it’s also a nice way to cope with the summer heat when the inside of your house feels like a preheated oven and you don’t have air conditioning. Our town of about 100,000 people decided to put in a public swimming pool, consisting of two pools. The kiddie pool and the non kiddie pool. I, Lourdes have accepted the fact that I have entered into the harsh reality that I now belong in the world of ‘the kiddie pool’. There is no sense in fighting it, it’s just the way it is. 

My ego has been sucker punched a few times about the fact that I am no longer a cool, fun, energetic, living life on the edge, spontaneous, young, carefree, sought after being. Womp woooommp. I’ve finally, ever so slowly started reaching out to other moms in my stage of life, accepting what is and what was. Finding a new way of moving in creation. Realizing that I now have to make another human being’s life NOT suck ass. That was a hard reality, I thought that I could do both, as a young mom you reach a point where you lay your identity down and walk away. You CAN’T have it both ways, you’re not bipolar! 

Back to kiddie pool life. It’s the day after the Euro Cup 2020 victory, (bear cub and I stayed in for the big night. My expat friends have a pimped out house in the center and we slept over.) I decided to take my little bear to the pool the following morning. Being that the entire town stayed up partying until sunrise, I imagined everyone would be too hung over to be at the pool, I was right with my instinct! Not a soul in sight… It was the first time I have ever seen the pool look like it was closed. We paid our entrance, parked our stroller (street best friend) in between our beach chairs, under our umbrella and lathered ourselves with Australian sunscreen… because you know, Tuscan sun. Slowly trailing in behind us another little toddler with her granny came in and set up camp. They made their way to the pool and we introduced ourselves and the kids got on handsomely. The little girl’s name was Diamond (Diamanti). She was 19 months old and totally fearless. She had a fountain of blonde hair being held by the world’s smallest hair tie, and her eyes matched the swimming pool. My son kept calling her ‘amantide’ (praying mantis in Italian).

 After about an hour, a group of younger people with children made their way over to the canopies, set up, and unpacked. It was four males, four females, two toddlers, and two older boys (old enough that could swim in the normal pool). This group looked like people that got kicked out of a biker gang and got hooked on meth. Not a judgement at all, just that they looked like they used to ride Harley’s, start bar fights, and raise all sorts of hell! They were all lanky and I could have easily taken two of the females alone. ANYWAYSSS, they had tattoos, piercings and were wearing black. The mothers had their hair done in unnatural colors and jet black with beautiful colors that I somewhat envied. There we all were… in the kiddie pool with screaming children at ungodly volumes before 12:00 on a Monday. How is this my life now? 

The three women sat on one corner of the pool, they could have been sisters or maybe just have the same hair stylist. They were speaking in a language I had no knowledge of but it sounded like it could have been Albanian or Romanian. One woman in particular could have been like the Avril Levigne of the group, she had beautiful piercing olive green eyes, it was a shade that makes you stare and get caught red handed. She was pale with gorgeous freckles. Her hair was jet black with golden streaks and she had curtain bangs, her hair was pulled back in a low thick ponytail. She was the striking one of the females and she didn’t even have to try, she was wearing shorts that were almost an inch above her knee (borderline boys shorts), it’s as if she just picked up the first thing off the floor that morning and threw them on without having a second or third option (been there, done that) with a boring tropical print. The other two looked as if they made an effort to find a flattering swimsuit, full on make-up, fake nails, the works….Nice looking ladies but nothing that would have made them stand out if they were contestants in a talent search. Anyways as they are chatting away I notice Green Eyes shouting “Louisa!” and her little girl about my son’s age was submerged underwater… The public’s attention went to that side of the pool. The little girl came up coughing water with a terrified look on her face, as soon as she finished her coughing fit she began to wail, understandably so. She had a little red polka dotted two piece with ruffles. The pool was quiet for a moment and like a crescendo it went back to normal. I got up and walked over to the three women and looked at Green Eyes and told her in Italian that I had packed an extra set of water wings in my bag, and if she was interested I would let Louisa borrow them for the day. She just looked at me with a cold stare, as if time stopped.. I repeated myself for the sake of a language misunderstanding, then I tried again slowly in English.. Green Eyes didn’t change her expression.. her sister translated for me and she looked at the sister and refused to look me back in the eyes, they had some sort of telepathic communication amongst themselves. The sister broke the ice and said “si grazie”. I hollered for my offspring and instructed him to sit at the edge of the pool until I returned. We were the first row of umbrellas, umbrella 11 to be exact. I hustled quickly to grab the water wings for Louisa. I returned and knelt down to my son and tried to convince him to give Louisa the Finding Nemo water wings for the Spider-Man deflated ones I had in my hands, he wasn’t so convinced.. so I went up to Green Eyes and said they are Spider-Man but they serve the same purpose as the Finding Nemo ones.. She snatched them from my hands, like an animal in the wild you try to feed but they don’t trust you… I backed away back to my spot, mid center of the kiddie pool near the entrance. In my mind I had made up this scenario that they would try to have some small talk like “what’s your little boy’s name?” or “how old is he” or “are you from Arezzo?” and befriend me. Nope, these bitches were tight.. no one could come in their circle. I was baffled. I thought we would have mom talk or something, this was a dead give away that they were not Tuscans, or Italian for that matter. More kids were slowly piling in, with parents looking like they partook in the previous night’s celebration. I noticed that Adrian (my son) and Louisa were playing in the same area of the pool. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that Louisa might have had down syndrome, she was definitely special needs. I felt my heart begin to tenderize, slowly letting it sink in that this other woman didn’t want my friendship. She has her girl gang and her high demanding daughter. She probably felt pangs of anger towards me or felt judged by me thinking that she didn’t have the proper adequate tools for her daughter at the pool. I was just looking out for another mother as a fellow mother myself. I have been in a situation where my mind was just trying to get out the door to be on time somewhere and I have forgotten the most useful thing to help me get through the day with a small child. 

As the afternoon progressed, Adrian and I did our own thing, we had lunch, and had fruit under our umbrella. I kept glancing over at the biker drop-out canopy and just scanning the pool situation as a whole to get a read on things. We made our way back poolside, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Diamanti hauling ass towards the adult pool without her water wings and without her granny in sight! Adrenaline kicked in, I jumped up to grab her before she hurled herself into the deep end of the pool. Granny ran up with a relieved look on her face, as she saw the whole scenario go down and couldn’t catch up with the momentum of time or the underestimated speed of a toddler. She thanked me and I continued to think to myself “come on dude, it’s a natural thing to do to look out for other kiddos! Isn’t it how it should be???”. Granny had obviously raised a daughter/son of her own because here she is caring for her grand-daughter. I didn’t get any feelings of disdain or animosity from granny, it was just two women looking out for each other, naturally. 

Back to Green Eyes, at a certain point a group of six Italian twenty-something year olds walked by to get to the adult pool with their perfect bodies, no stretch marks, perky tits, flawless skin, fully rested eyes, and swimsuits that seemed that were individually customized to fit their bodies to perfection. Damn near Victoria’s Secret Models. I saw Green Eyes examine this group of girls and it’s like a little piece of her died on the inside. (I’ve soooo been there!!!!!) She faced towards my direction and realized that I saw the whole thing of her checking out the carefree twenty year olds, who are clearly at different stages in life than us, we were just the moms at the kiddie pool. I totally felt for Green Eyes, there was a bit of sadness and a yearning for something that had existed at a moment in time. Even then she wouldn’t break a smile or acknowledgment that we were on the same fucking team! Here we were Green Eyes, girl gang, granny, and myself with our bodies full of evidence that we have been through the wars of motherhood and survived. Our tired bodies that were a tool to bring life into the world just being left in the dust by a stampede of perfect bodied non-mothers. 

I remember almost feeling hurt when I realized I was just categorized as a mom. I also remember BEING twenty something and in that moment in time most moms were invisible to me. But as I realize, in my wiser years, (but definitely not an expert) is that your looks are just a ticking time bomb sweetheart! All that shit goes down the drain if you don’t take care of yourself. Enjoy looking hot because it’s a matter of time before it vanishes before your eyes. You think you’re tired??? That’s cute. Just fucking wait, you have body issues now??? Saddle up doll face you’ll be knocked off your horse regardless… 

While I was watching my son play and the biker men made their way back to the pool, I was trying to formulate in my head (on repeat) why this woman I loaned the water wings to would have some feelings of resentment. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that she couldn’t even be kind to me… IDGAF what country/culture you are from at least be a decent human being. Maybe I don’t do well with rejection, and I’m used to making friends everywhere I go, along with being a natural alpha female. So as I continue to ponder this situation, the ex-biker men of the group picked up Green Eyes and tried to throw her in the pool. Once again all the attention was to their group, she flailed and tried to break free, she pleaded and cursed until they put her down. She was put back down on the side of the pool, her face was bright with embarrassment . Like a rolodex, all these memories throughout the years I’ve been living in Italy came flooding through my mind. I have been asked several times if I were Romanian or Albanian. Then after I would respond “American”, to their sigh of relief, the person that asked me, would give me an ear full of these mysterious groups of people. I was always told by Italians that the “Anians” were not to be trusted, that they take advantage, and they act as if you owe them something. Something inside my head finally clicked about the Italian culture and what they had against these people, simultaneously I was sort of pissed off because I ALWAYS get asked if I’m an “Anian”. Assholes. But upon hearing that I’m American I would somehow receive praise??? and I didn’t comprehend that at all … weird?? 

Romanians, Albanians, and Italians all look very ordinary, not easy to pick one out from the other, in my humble opinion. Aside from them not speaking Italian I am not at the level where I can peg an “Anian” over a Neapolitan. However, French, German, Spanish I can sniff out and obviously North Americans.