Doing It Louder

Milano, love, Design Week, and an Aries year

Hello world.

It has been a while.

And what a while it has been.

Last time I checked in with my feelings was a few days before my birthday — right as my Aries year was beginning, and my emotions were everywhere.

Just like my plans.

Actually, no.

Not messy.

Just overly optimistic, deeply ambitious, slightly insane.

The kind of plans that only make sense to the person dreaming them.

During those days, my feelings were pouring out of me in every possible direction.

Happy.
Sad.
Empty.
Full.

And all I could really do was let them exist.

Cherish them, even.

Because feeling deeply — even painfully — still means being alive.

Then came my birthday.

Or more accurately:
my birthday week.

As an Aries celebration should be.

And it started exactly at midnight, under the Milano sky, with passionate kisses, amore, and merging bodies.

A celebration perfectly designed for me.

Good wine.
Talking into the night.
Burning passion.
Artistic souls.

Poetry — written with people.

My broken heart slowly started breathing again.

And then something shifted.

It stopped feeling broken.

And instead, became fuller than before.

More honest.
More trusting.
More understood.

As if souls choose each other again and again, until they finally decide to stay softer with one another.

The celebrations continued all week.

Delicious dinners.
Events.
Work.
Long nights.

And then finally, it ended with an entire day in heaven.

Or more specifically:

San Pellegrino Therme.

I knew the place already.

I had seen pictures before and dreamed about going for a long time.

But arriving there as a surprise — as the final ceremony of my birthday week — felt unreal.

Picture this:

Warm thermal water outside.
Mountains in front of me.
Fog wrapping the trees.
Little cold rain drops falling on my face.

Grey skies.

Fresh air.

Silence.

And me standing there, breathing in the moment as deeply as I could, trying to permanently imprint it into my memory.

One of the most beautiful days of my life.

Truly.

Everything felt perfect.

And I mean everything.

The fact that it was rainy and grey made it even more beautiful to me.

Like the entire atmosphere had been designed specifically for my soul.

I cannot explain how much I loved those mountains.

The dark green trees.
The fog.
The stillness.

It all felt sacred somehow.

And after a week full of love, affection, intensity, celebration and softness…

what more could I have wanted?

It felt like a ceremony.

Not just for my birthday.

But for myself.

For growth.
For choosing myself louder.
For embracing all that I am and all that I need.

After years of relationships, experiences, and moments where I didn’t fully listen to my heart.

Or maybe I did.

Just not loudly enough.

I have always followed my instincts in some way.

After all, I am an Aries.

But this year…

I am doing it louder.

And somehow, everything feels aligned.

Blessed to be alive.

Blessed to love.

Blessed to be loved.

Blessed to keep searching for even more love.

Then reality came back.

Or maybe not reality — just another version of life.

I smelled like spa oils and heaven for two more days, and then suddenly:

Milano Design Week started.

Already my third edition.

And every single year, the same emotions run through my veins.

Because Milano during Design Week is not just a city.

It becomes a living organism.

Everything is design.

The streets.
The cafés.
The installations.
The conversations.
The people.

And you suddenly realize that design is not decoration.

It shapes how we live.

How we move.
How we think.
How we rest.
How we love.

Our habits.
Our rituals.
Our everyday lives.

And maybe that’s why I love it so much.

Because design is never just objects.

It is humanity translated into form.

That week came with another gift:

My mother.

And somehow, experiencing Milano together with her felt deeply emotional.

We spent days moving through the city like two women completely in love with life.

Events.
Coffee.
Museums.
Aperitivos.
Beautiful food.

And in the middle of all the chaos, we escaped again for another spa day — this time in the center of Milano.

26 degrees.

Warm water.

A buzzing city outside.

And us inside, floating quietly through it all.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

I love you.

And somewhere inside this beautiful madness, I was still buried in thesis meetings, deadlines, and appointments.

I am building something I am deeply proud of.

Something that feels bigger than me.

You will hear about it when the time comes.

And trust me — it is worth the wait.

Then another week arrived.

Filled again with love under the skies.

Days that fed my soul with golden energy.

And then my special guest arrived.

My favorite witch.
Food designer.
Platonic lover.
Amante.
Inspiration.
Dear friend.

And together, we took on Milano again.

Walking endlessly through neighborhoods.
Discovering restaurants.
Talking about life for hours and hours and hours.

Some people exhaust you.

Some people expand you.

She expands me.

We are similar in many ways.

Maybe made from the same dough.

But somehow, we unlock different things inside each other.

And that feels rare.

\We had one of those iconic Milano days.

The kind you remember years later.

We started with breakfast.

Then jumped into a taxi to go watch The Devil Wears Prada 2.

And seeing Milano appear on the screen — the Galleria, the streets we had walked the night before — made us almost emotional.

“This is the kind of movie that makes you say fuck it, quit your job and move to Milano.”

Then she paused.

“Oh wait… you actually did that.”

After the movie came coffee.

Affogato this time.

Then another taxi.

Straight to the Armani Exhibition.

And stepping inside felt like stepping into discipline, mastery, elegance.

A man so loved by his city.

By Milano.

Milano, per amore.

Sempre.

Later, we walked around the canals while the sun was setting.

Watching people.

Watching light move across the water.

Quietly grateful.

For each other.

For life itself.

We finished the night with pasta at Osteria Della Fortunata.

And it absolutely deserved the hype.

Simple. Perfect. Italian.

Just like life can become when you finally learn how to live it.

Because there is no destination.

Only moments.

And your only job is to embrace them fully.

To love yourself.

To become yourself.

And to be kind.

God, we need more kindness.

Thank you, my gorgeous wifey, for this weekend.

We promised each other more Italian cities.

And we will do it.

Celebrating sisterhood.
Womenhood.
Friendship.
Expansion.

And then everything became quiet again.

But the full-soul kind of quiet.

The kind that wants to breathe for a while.

To process everything gently.

To spend rainy nights sleeping on her chest.

The kind that studies for finals.

Does yoga three times a week.
Weight training four.

The kind that loves her girlfriend.

And loves many women deeply.

The kind that will become louder from now on.

Not in volume.

But in the intensity of living.

The kind that became so happy with her life
that she cannot help but intoxicate everyone around her with it.

With loving more life.

More people.

More deeply.

With love.