I Just Want to Go Back Home
"Please, Mr. Marinelli, sign here". Her tone was polite, but bored. The kind of tone you’d expect from someone who repeats that same line, identically, hundreds of times a day. The woman at the University Admissions Office was an expert. Middle-aged, courteous yet detached. A quality I would, over time, recognize in many people I met along my path.
I signed without reading, without thinking. An automatic gesture. Then, looking at my parents, she said, "Now you need to go, with this form, to the nearest Carisbo branch. Only after payment and the return of the receipt will the enrollment be final. Exit the office, go right to the end of the street, then right again, and you'll find it on your right. It's simple". I had heard her repeat that same phrase—identically—at least fifty times that morning, for each of the people in line ahead of me to register for university.
We left, thanking her. My parents in front, me behind. The place unsettled me. It had the austerity of an old office. Almost baroque, with its busts and plaques. For me, just a boy, it was something I saw as distant. Almost like something out of a horror film.
We walked down Via Zamboni, a street I had walked a few times before, but that morning everything felt different. The marvelous porticoes of Bologna felt, in truth, like cages, trapping me in something that wasn't for me. And in the spots where we walked along the road, I saw those ancient buildings, though not too tall, rising above the porticoes. They were distant enough to show the sky, but the street was narrow. I had the feeling they were touching one another. As if they were about to implode, to fall right on top of me. I felt crushed. Suffocated. I couldn't breathe; I wanted to cry. "Oh God, no, let's leave. I can't stay here. This city is big, chaotic, alien. Suffocating. Distant. I don't know anyone, there are so many people. In my small city, I have my certainties. Here, instead, I feel lost. I just want to go back home". It was a deafening thought in my mind. So deafening it drowned out the loud sounds of the city—so loud that they became, in my mind, silence. Because they were alien, loud, distant from me. And so, in my mind, they were erased. Non-existent.
I kept telling myself that the enrollment wouldn't be final until the fee was paid. In other words, I still had about fifteen minutes to call it all off. Yes, I could have. "Yes, please, let's cancel everything. But then what? What will I do with my life? What do I want to do, if not this? But all of this scares me. I just want to go back home. Take me home". Thoughts that remained only in my mind for many years.
But as I repeated these words to myself, we reached the end of the street. We turned right and, after walking under more porticoes, I saw the bank's sign. Just a few more minutes and it would all be done. "No, no. I can't stay here. Let's go back. I just want to go back home".
We entered the bank. My mother, standing at the door, looked at me. It was as if she had heard my thoughts, but she hadn't disturbed them. She had known me for eighteen years: no one can influence my thoughts, and for myself, I always choose. Taking the rewards if I'm right, or suffering the consequences if I'm wrong. Without being able to blame anyone but myself.
Her questioning gaze demanded an answer. I said nothing, but I nodded. She waited another second, but she knew that when I say something, I've decided and I don't go back. We went in. We paid. We left. We rushed back.
Arriving again at that office, I saw it with different eyes. I tried to make friends with those busts, with those faces, with those plaques. In reality, I would only set foot in there again five years later, but at the time, I didn't know that yet.
We returned to the counter, and the same woman, with her usual tone, carried out the second part—already heard, of course, from all the people in line before us. "Welcome, Mr. Marinelli. You are officially enrolled in the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical, and Natural Sciences—Department of Computer Science. I wish you the best of luck with your studies".
It was done. There was no going back. I was confused, but already looking forward. Those oppressive porticoes would be the stage for my next five years, at least.
Five years later, I still remember when I entered that place again. Identical to five years before, and the feeling inside me was similar. But this time, I was different. It felt more familiar. I walked in with a student record book full of signed lines—one for each exam, with a grade on every line. The "proof" of the results of those five years of study, made of changes, revolutions, reforms. I went to the counter, alone this time, and went to take a number, convinced I would have to wait in a long line. There was a sign I hadn't noticed five years earlier: "For those submitting their record book at the end of their studies, just knock". I knocked—and, to my surprise, the same woman from five years ago opened the door. Time, for her, had not passed. She was identical. Courteous yet detached. She took my record book and said goodbye, telling me, "When you need to collect your diploma, follow the same procedure". I was left waiting for her return.
As always happens (and in those days, without smartphones, it happened even more), I started to look around me. An endless line of young kids, almost all with their parents, with lost and intimidated looks on their faces. I could read on their faces all the questions they were asking themselves. I could hear their thoughts; the screams in their minds were piercing, almost deafening. They asked themselves a thousand questions and ended their sentences in the same way: "I just want to go back home".
I realized one of them was looking at me. He had a questioning, almost imploring look. He saw me as more of an "adult" and had seen me hand in my record book, with a smile on my face and more confidence in my interaction with the Admissions Lady. I looked at him and gave him a nod, a slight tuck of my chin and a firm, reassuring smile. He looked at me, smiled, and gave a small nod in return. He looked at his parents and told them, "Yes, let's do it". He had just understood that his fears were normal, that he shouldn't let them stop him.
I walked out of that office and looked up. I looked at the porticoes and the buildings. And I thought back to how oppressive they had seemed to me, in that summer of 1998, when I registered. And that, all things considered, they still feel oppressive to me today, a memory of those powerful sensations from back then. But there is a difference: those porticoes, in some way, have also become my home.