The Joy in the Journey: Sisterhood and Florence’s Magic
Updated: Oct 8
There are many ways to celebrate a milestone:
Going on a cruise (not my vibe)
Skydiving (we're not there yet)
Fine dining with loved ones (please don't wait for milestones to do that. That should be just what you do)
A very special woman in my life was celebrating her EPIC birthday, and she decided a quick tour in Florence was her speed. (Quick, because in America, time off is a luxury item!) We packed accordingly: excitement, anticipation, and an unreasonable number of outfits for a single week and flew toward Italy with the joy that only sisterhood and celebration can generate.
I loved this trip because it revealed a side of myself that I could only meet while traveling in a group.
We laughed until our stomachs hurt.
We dressed up.
We ate too much, #noregret.
We took entirely too many pictures.
And somewhere between all that joy, I learned something about myself I wasn’t expecting.
A night to remember
Playing paparazzi Our dinner host happily photobombed us!
I'm not sure how we ended up at a club after dinner.
The birthday girl is one who shamelessly and CONTINUOUSLY promises epic partying with a side of "painting the town red" only to CONSISTENTLY return home by 10 PM. But, somehow, we always fall for her over-promising. As they say, HOPE IS LOUD. So, that night, after a lovely dinner with a very attentive host, we headed out to a club.
The vibe was chill.
The music? Mostly American, which always throws me because I travel to go leave America, not remix it.
Of course, the first thing we do before getting drinks is take pictures while we're still fresh. (One of us is an avid social media documenter).
At one point we asked this lovely, sexy chocolate man to take a picture OF us but instead, he jumped in the picture with us. Bold. Italian-adjacent confidence. I love it!
We laughed and obliged.
The next few days we spent visiting various places and snapping pictures.
Then, there were the sunsets.
Sunsets have always undone me.
There’s something soul-stirring about watching the sky bleed into a breathtaking gradient of purples, oranges, and pinks. It’s intimate.
Residents and tourists alike paused. No one shouted or moved. We simply stood beneath the same sky, letting it happen.
It felt sacred.
Maybe that’s why the tension I felt later in the trip was so noticeable. Somewhere between the laughter, the dinners, the outfits, and all the pictures, the trip began to reveal something less comfortable.
Traveling with a group of women I love and admire also meant learning that love doesn’t make our energies identical.
The group dynamic slowly shifted as the days went by.
Every time I tried to get a word in, my friend’s voice arrived 10 decibels louder than mine.
Must every moment be an all-caps moment?
Each statement I’d make would be met with an opinion.
I’m not sure exactly when I noticed it, but her way of having fun started to feel overwhelming. Nothing mean was said. Nothing was explicitly done to me. And yet, I was hurting.
Discomfort didn’t arrive through conflict. It was the experience of feeling like there’s no room left for me.
So, yeah, our energies didn’t always align. And that’s fine. I get that. But the dynamic slowly drained me.
After a few days, it got loud in my head. Aggressively loud.
Though my sister was there, I felt alone and invisible.
In a group of seven.
In a city of 361,000 people.
My instinct kicked in and I retreated inward to preserve my softness, my peace.
No one saw me and that’s what hurt.
This trip asked something different of me. Instead of pretending I wasn’t bothered, I cried alone in my room.
Then I asked myself a harder question:
How do I stay open to joy without abandoning myself?
Truth, I hated that question.
But I loved that it crossed my mind.
Florence didn’t just offer scenic views and limoncellos. It asked me to notice something I hadn’t noticed before. Heaven knows I hadn't crossed an ocean to lose myself trying to keep up with someone else’s definition of a good time.
So, I chose stillness.
I took some space from the group.
Then quiet did what quiet does: it gave me enough distance to hear my own thoughts again.
I was reminded that I don’t have to become smaller because my definition of fun differs from mine.
So, chill, Emi. Simply be.
As you are is exceptional.
Chef Fiori visibly falling in love with a group of black women
Then, there was Chef Fiori.
And perhaps that’s what made what happened next feel so good: being around people could also feel easy. I didn’t have to disappear to belong.
He took so many selfies!!!
We had a dinner reservation at a local restaurant, and the moment we walked in, the restaurant manager seemed instantly alert.
Two notes:
A- we did not know Chef Fiori.
B- with no prior communication, we all packed floral dresses and wore it that night. GREAT MINDS PACK ALIKE!
The manager took one look at us, turned on his heel, and went straight to the kitchen to fetch the chef. Moments later, Chef Fiori emerged.
Clearly delighted by the unexpected bouquet of guests! At the end of dinner, we were treated to bottomless limoncellos, dessert, and an invitation into the kitchen, where naturally, we took another picture.
I should also mention that the restaurant manager graciously offered to drive us back to our villa, and we kindly accepted. But as we wound our way down the serpentine roads, it quickly became clear he had an ulterior motive:
He wanted to stop and proudly show us off to all his friends along the way. And oh, was he proud of himself!
Ah, the Italians! We had a great laugh.
It was one of those serendipitous, joy-filled moments of being seen abroad, not just for our beauty, but for our collective energy, style, and spirit.
Maybe that was the lesson: I didn’t need less people around me. I needed more room to remain myself among them.
Last stop: Amalfi Coast
We wrapped up the trip with a boat tour, more food, more laughter, and more vacation photos along the Amalfi Coast.
Sun, Aperol spritz, and curls
Those are the moments that remind me that joy doesn’t require everything to feel good.
Because travel doesn’t always teach through grand revelations. Sometimes growth arrives through laughter. Sometimes through stillness. Sometimes through sisterhood. And sometimes through a glass of bubbly held just right.
Florence gave me all of that.
The real joy in the journey wasn’t Florence.
It was learning how to stay together without disappearing.
Maybe that’s its own kind of sisterhood.
Stay soft,
Emi
P.S. Ugh... Will every trip now have a lesson I didn’t pack for? Oh boy!
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