Things My Italian Husband Has Taught Me About Living Intentionally

I didn’t realize how ‘fast’ I was living until I met and married my husband. When I say... Italian husband I mean straight from Roma, La città eterna. We lived on his side of the ocean for about 10 years and brought a lot of our "Italian normal" back here to the USA.

I used to think moving fast meant I was doing life right. I was getting ahead, I was efficient. Plan, plan, and plan some more.

Then I started living with someone who moves at a completely different pace.

Not lazy. Not unmotivated. Just… unhurried. An unbothered king, if you will.

At first, it annoyed me. Shouldn’t we be doing something? Feeling guilty for "just being" - or trying to plan something in the future and hearing "mo vediamo" (We'll see).

And then, slowly, uncomfortably, beautifully — I noticed something more than I ever have in the past year. He showed me, in his own way, I was being absent. Absent from being. Absent from conversations. Absent from my own life while trying to manage it so perfectly.

Learning to slow down didn't make my life feel unorganized or smaller, it made me feel like mine again- even in chaos.

🤍 Not Every Moment Needs to Be Productive

This one stretched me, and to this day I am NOT perfect at this huge mindset shift.

Sitting outside… doing nothing. Just sun on skin and a breeze.

Watching a show and actually watching it. Not half-scrolling. Just being entertained like a normal human.

Taking a walk with our pup with no step goal, no pace tracking, no fitness badge waiting at the end. Just moving because it feels good to be in a body that can move right now.

I used to believe rest had to earn its place. That downtime needed a justification. Some days I still catch myself thinking "I will rest for 30 more minutes and then I need to do something."

Now I see how much my nervous system needs moments where nothing was being extracted from me. No performance. No optimization. Just existence. It's not laziness. It's regulation.

🤍 Home Is a Feeling, Not a To-Do List

Warm lamp light in the evening instead of harsh overheads. Slippers waiting by the couch. Cozy blankets, heating pad, and my furbaby.

Atmosphere over perfection.

That includes opening the windows every AM to let the natural light and breeze in.

🤍 Slowing Down Isn’t Laziness — It’s Living

For a long time, I thought my fast pace was ambition. Discipline. Drive. And parts of it were.

But parts of it were also a dysregulated nervous system that didn’t know how to feel safe unless it was busy. Slowing down has felt like teaching my body a new language. One where presence is allowed. Where joy doesn’t have to be scheduled three weeks in advance. Where rest isn’t a reward — it’s a rhythm.

I still have goals. I still care about growth. I still build, plan, and create.

I just don’t want to be absent from life anymore. We have lived through different types of grief on rotation and it's taught us that the things we thought felt "too little" or could wait -really can't anymore.

🤍 Sundays are Reset Days

I always wanted to plan something 'big' on Sunday. Get up and go, clean our entire afternoon away, do tasks that we put off during the week.

Now? Our Sundays are sacred. We don't make plans, and if we do its for a romantic date night for dinner or the beach.

We talk with most of our family in Italy, play our cozy games, take a long walk with our pup, watch a movie in the AM (I KNOWWW), and just enjoy being in our little sanctuary together.

🤍 La Fine

I’m learning that a beautiful life isn’t only built in the big milestones and achievements.

It’s built in long dinners, slow mornings, open windows, and conversations that don’t end when the calendar says they should. It's spending enough time with the people I love most and not worrying about a load of laundry waiting for me in the PM.

The more my life stops feeling rushed — it started feeling rich.

I’m still learning how to move at the speed of life instead of the speed of pressure.