Roma (Roam-a)
It called me back. A place I had only ever been to twice in my entire life felt like I had been born and raised there and had never left. I packed my bags with the very few things I own in life, basically quit my job the week before, and bought the train ticket from Frankfurt to Rome because it was cheaper than a flight with a checked luggage. That was in June 2023.
It’s true I’ve been doing some soul searching for the last months, trying to figure out where I am going to call home for the next part of my life. I decided to take matters into my own hands and look for jobs here and there that I could do. All of which fell through for one reason or another. I received an email from one of the Human Resource offices explaining to me that I didn’t receive the job and that if I wanted to know anything further reference the reason why I could call them. I did that and I was told simply '“…you aren’t a good fit for us because you are overqualified”. I never liked that word, overqualified.
At the beginning of the year I voiced my concerns to a friend of mine over a coffee and he recommended that I find some spirituality in the matter and that maybe I should go to our local cathedral and just meditate on the matter. Me being agnostic was vehemently against the suggestion and didn’t give it a thought no sooner as I had finished my espresso. I walked away from our meeting with the feeling that I had a long year ahead of me with no answers.
It was June when I started really getting desperate. I’ll make a long story short and say that I was chasing the light during the golden hour of the day which led me into St Josephs cathedral in wiesbaden. Me being tired from having walked around the city half of the day photographing decided to have a seat in one of the pews and rest for a second. Next to me on the ground was a paper, crumbled, dirty, and absolutely in the right place at the right time. I opened it and it gave me a message. the message said '“S.P.Q.R.”. I had seen enough and two weeks later I decided to move to Rome. I’ve been there ever since.