Quarantine Paused Me, Trieste Awoke Me

I thought my move to Trieste would be simple: pack, relocate, begin again. Then quarantine arrived.

When people asked me why Italy, I laughed and said: “Is there anyone who doesn’t?” Fear never crossed my mind. I had no idea what kind of beginning awaited me. Today, yes, I live a beautiful life here — but only because I worked hard to build it.

Instead of the Adriatic, I got three months in Zagreb, locked inside the very building where I worked. Work blurred into life, days bled into nights. And then there was my colleague X, assigned to train me — at first charming, later unsettling. The kind of charm that quickly turns into something you’d rather escape.

Mornings began with the same bitter coffee in the same paper cup. The echo of my footsteps down the empty hallway felt louder than my own thoughts. Outside, the streets were silent, but inside the office the glow of my laptop became both my sunrise and sunset. Days merged into nights, and sometimes I wondered if the world still existed beyond those walls.

And then the earthquake came.

I stood outside in the snow, watching people spill into the streets. That night on TV: mothers in bathrobes cradling newborns outside the children’s hospital, standing in the freezing cold. X sat beside me, almost pleased we were “stuck” there together, even musing about the army taking to the streets, as the news speculated. I swear I thought the apocalypse had arrived.

The ground didn’t just shake — it broke something inside me. My legs trembled long after the walls stilled. Watching mothers with babies, stripped bare in their helplessness, was an image I carried for months. I wasn’t only afraid of buildings collapsing. I was afraid that the entire order of life could collapse in a single moment.

Three months later, when the borders finally opened, I packed my two suitcases and left. The roads to the crossing were eerily empty, as if the world hadn’t yet decided to wake up. Soldiers in masks checked my papers with gloved hands. The silence of the checkpoint weighed heavier than my luggage. And then, finally, the sign: Italia. My chest tightened. It felt as though I had been holding my breath for three months, and only now I could exhale.

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The Italians say colpita — struck. That’s what Trieste did to me.

Pale stone architecture. The sea shimmering at the edge of every street. Pasta on tables, and Italian spoken like the softest music I had ever heard.

I remember my first lunch break with colleagues. Narrow alleys, the hum of voices, the scent of food in the summer heat. I stumbled through half-broken Italian and felt as if I had just won the lottery of life.

The air smelled of salt, of coffee, of possibility. I didn’t understand most of what was being said around me, but I didn’t need to — the rhythm of the city spoke louder than words. For a brief moment, I believed I had arrived exactly where I was meant to be.

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Back in the office that afternoon, a thought hit me harder than the espresso: nothing stays this perfect for long.

And I was right. Perfection never lasts. Life in a new city was just about to reveal its real face.

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Quarantine slowed me down. Trieste sped me up.
Somewhere between the two, I learned: jackpots come when you least expect them — and they never come without a price.

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