Trust Your Gut — Suzey Ingold

Eight years ago, I was supposed to move to Florence. Everything was arranged, right down to the ludicrous Italian bureaucracy. I got to the airport. I got to the gate. I didn’t go. It’s a story I’ve told enough times; a story I wrote out, once, although it is now lost to a blog that no longer exists.

It is a decision I never once regretted. Not as I refigured my university career with Italian removed from the mix. Not as I graduated with a Linguistics degree, nor as I eventually made a big move – only, this time, to Toronto. Nor do I regret it now, as I visit Florence for the first time and get lost in winding streets and towering basilicas above.

Florence and I are reconciling our differences, eight years on.

The day I quietly walked up to the airline staff and said I would not be getting on the plane was the first time in my life, to my memory, that I trusted my gut above all else. I ignored what everyone else said was best for me; what was expected of me. I put everything else aside and focused solely on the aching feeling dragging at the pit of my stomach that said, this isn’t the right path for you.

My anxiety didn’t like listening to that feeling. It seemed unreliable, untrustworthy, against the slew of information around me in the real world. But learning to trust my gut was the best thing I ever did for myself.

It’s an odd expression, to be sure – my gut is notoriously untrustworthy, at least when it comes to dairy. But this deep entrenched instinct, this intuitive sense of where to go next or what to do, is something I believe in – what I call it is irrelevant.

The day I left for Canada, a few friends joked that I “better get on the plane this time”. I nodded and smiled, but that was never in question. Not once did that sense of deep, dreaded unease creep in as I left for Toronto, as it had all those years ago waiting for my flight to Pisa. If anything, my gut had guided me to this point, onto the plane that would take me across the Atlantic.

Someone asked me recently why I moved to Toronto. A few reasons, I noted. Itchy feet. An easy visa. A love of big cities. And alongside all of that, I acknowledged, because I wanted to work at the film festival there.

“Hey,” they commented. “You did it!”

Huh. I guess I did.

Instinct brought me to Toronto, and to a job I love.

Instinct started tugging again recently, a period of stagnation leaving me otherwise drained and uninspired. I tentatively started putting together a trip to Europe that for weeks felt, frankly, impossible. But even the hope that I might be able to go was something; enough to pull me out of a rut and awaken a part of myself that had been in hibernation.

As my departure date drew closer and I began to lock down dates, flights, places to stay, I anticipated some sense of panic to come upon me. Logistically, it meant two months living out of a suitcase and working remotely on a completely different timezone. That, in and of itself, was a lot to figure out.

But the panic never came. As I sat in the airport on Saturday evening with my backpack between my feet and half a dozen masks stuffed into the front pocket, I felt alarmingly calm. I kept waiting for it to come, that anxiety, that nervousness. My gut was silent.

This is the right path for you.

I arrived in Rome on Sunday morning, jet-lagged, exhausted, and bewildered by the surreality of being on another continent in order to travel after the past couple of years. The late morning sun beating down, I dragged my suitcase over cobblestones, winding a vague route from the station to my hotel. Instinct was on my side, guiding me through a city I had never before visited, just as it had in so many foreign locations before.

Instead of anxiety, all that came was a sense of ease. A sense of self. Being dropped in a strange place and made to find my way was such a part of me. Travel is what built my self-confidence over the years; not least travelling alone. Travel is what develops my imagination and creativity; my outlook on the world; my understanding of human nature. All things I utilise heavily in my writing, as much as in my daily life.

My parents arrived later that night to join me for a few days. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are of travelling with them; in particular, exploring new places with my mum. But it’s been nearly twenty years since many of those visits and just as I’ve grown into an adult, they, too have aged. All the anxieties that I had expected to come and didn’t, I saw in them, as they adjusted to travelling again. Adjusted to large crowds of people. Adjusted to a lifestyle that wasn’t in their nature anymore.

We parted ways in Florence, to reunite in a few weeks’ time on more familiar ground. I am just at the start of my travels, with a stash of train tickets in my backpack that will take me through the weeks to come. Every single day will not be incredible or awe-inspiring or unforgettable – because every day of our lives can’t be. I’m still living my relatively normal life, I’m just living it with some different views for a little while.

But on the bad days, as well as the good, I know instinct will guide me to where I need to be. And right now, I think that where I need to be is in front of a very large bowl of pasta.