I’ll tell you my tough life in reverse
We are publishing an extract from the book "Nato all'incontrario" written by the journalist Francesco Curridori
I don't know when my earthly life will end, but I am aware that none of my physical or existential problems will ever have a worthy conclusion. Maybe I will never get married or maybe I will find the woman of my life, but who knows if I will truly be happy next to her? Who assures me a happy ending? Nobody. Maybe I will live in job insecurity for some time longer or not, but certainly the doubts and anxieties may not go away with a snap of the fingers. And what about disability ? I don't think it will disappear in the blink of an eye. Even if I recovered, would I really be guaranteed to live happily ever after? The fact that I will never be certain of "a happy ending" does not mean that I have to settle for mediocrity because, as the great poet sings, "he who is satisfied enjoys, so-so…". After all the vicissitudes I have had to face, I deserve full and authentic happiness and not something fake that I pass off as real. I'll explain.
Many celebrities, but also many ordinary people, have excellent health and yet lead a shitty life. I've written it, I've said it several times, and I'll say it again: having good health is not the path to happiness. If it took so little, life would be a blast. I saw children with Down syndrome who, with their smile and their eyes, lit up the dark faces of their parents. The classic happy ending, perhaps, will never come for me and yet I could consider myself quite happy and content if I were able to walk the journey that precedes my death every day with a modicum of that light. I am on a journey and I must strive towards that light if I do not want to fall back into depression.
I have tried as much as possible not to write a self-congratulatory book and I sincerely hope that I have succeeded in this aim. I hate being pitied and I hope the message is clear and simple: my life does not begin and end in a hospital bed. My life is not contained in a hospital record. A disabled person, unfortunately, is still seen only as a sick person, while disability is only one aspect of my existence and not even the most relevant one. I am first and foremost a journalist who, in addition, has the peculiarity of also being disabled. Many people roll their eyes when I tell you what happened to me and believe that the transplant was the most important event of my life. I, on the other hand, think I haven't done anything exceptional, apart from trying not to give up.
And here we come to the second question. Did I win or did I lose? If by "winning" you mean having a family, a home of your own, a stable job and excellent health, then I have failed dramatically. If by winning you mean that I got up like Rocky Balboa every time I got knocked down, then I definitely won. And, in this regard, I cannot fail to quote the great poet, Silvester Stallone: “The world is not all roses and flowers, it is truly a miserable and dirty 'place' and no matter how strong you may be, if you let it it will bring you to your knees and leaves you with nothing forever. Neither I, nor you, anyone, can hit as hard as life does, so going forward it doesn't matter how you hit. The important thing is how you resist blows, how you get stuck and if you end up knocked down, have the strength to get back up. So you are a winner and if you believe you are strong you have to prove that you are strong, because a man only wins if he knows how to resist. He doesn't go around pointing the finger at those who aren't right, accusing first this one and then that other of what they're doing wrong."
Well, illnesses have only made the path more bumpy, they have slowed me down and above all they have forged my character. But, if I continued to fight, it is not just thanks to my obstinacy or stubbornness. If despair and depression did not prevail, it is thanks to all those people who made my journey happy: the doctors who treated me, the nuns who prayed for me, my family who supported me.
In the book I dedicated ample space to friends and unrequited love because relationships with others are the best cure for those who suffer. The important thing is not to be healthy or sick, to get married or stay single. The important thing is to love and let yourself be loved. True healing does not consist in being able to drive a car, but in having someone to thank when you are driven from one part of the city to another in a totally free and disinterested manner. The real turning point in my life came slowly when, having moved to Rome, over time, I began to constantly feel that I had met people who trusted me and who took me away from loneliness. We often talk about social inclusion, we write laws and allocate funds (they are always too few) for disabled people, but we forget the most important ingredient: love. The transplant itself is an operation like many others that does not heal the real wounds of the heart. Then, as is obvious and natural, there are and always will be people who, knowingly or not, will hurt me, but everything contributes to the good, even the most tragic of events.
(And excerpt from the book " Nato all'incontrario " written by the journalist Francesco Curridori)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vi-racconto-la-mia-tosta-vita-all-incontrario/ on Wed, 01 Nov 2023 06:45:27 +0000.