Italy Didn't Make Me Happier. It Made Me Feel Alive.

People often imagine that moving to another country is about chasing a better life.

Better weather.

Beautiful landscapes.

A slower rhythm.

Nine years after moving to Italy, I don't think that's what happened to me.

Italy did not espacially make me happier.

It made me feel alive.

There is a difference.

Back in Belgium, I had built a comfortable life.

I had work, stability, opportunities and everything I thought I was supposed to want.

Yet underneath that comfort, there was a quiet emptiness I couldn't quite explain.

Living here has not replaced that emptiness with comfort.

Quite the opposite.

It has replaced it with reality.

For years, I had no permanent home.

Like many people living in tourist regions, I had to leave every summer because holiday rentals were more profitable than long-term rentals.

This wasn't only my reality.

Many locals experienced the same uncertainty.

I continued running my design studio while moving from one temporary home to another.

Reliable Wi-Fi was never guaranteed.

Storms occasionally cut internet lines.

Client meetings sometimes happened from unexpected places.

Fortunately, after years of working together, my clients trusted me.

They knew I would always deliver, wherever I happened to be.

Still, there was stress.

There were also many other challenges.

Being a woman travelling alone deserves an article of its own.

There were moments of loneliness, misunderstandings and tears.

More than once, I found comfort not in certainty, but simply by walking through olive groves, sitting by the sea or watching the mountains change colour at sunset.

Nature stopped being a destination.

It became a companion.

Yet something unexpected happened.

The less certainty I had, the more genuine my relationships became.

When life is difficult, people stop pretending they have everything under control.

They ask for help.

They offer help.

Not because they expect something in return, but because they know what it feels like to carry too much on their own.

In Italy, for most people, life is challenging, so it's in their culture to support one another.

There is less performance.

Less pretending.

More humanity.

I also began to understand something else.

Here, I have met many people who don't do the job they once dreamed of.

Yet they rarely see it as a personal failure

or a sign that their life has gone wrong.

Often, they simply had fewer opportunities, fewer educational pathways, or circumstances that offered less freedom to choose.

It reminded me that careers are not always shaped by talent or ambition alone.

They are also shaped by where we are born, the opportunities we are given,

and the systems we live in.

Merit certainly exists, but it doesn't always determine the outcome.

In the Northern, we are obsessed with our careers, success or our income.

But life is rarely that simple.

Certainly here.

Sometimes opportunities are missing.

Sometimes education never opened the right doors.

Sometimes circumstances shape a life more than talent ever could.

Yet I met people with extraordinary generosity, resilience and dignity.

People who found purpose in family, friendship, helping neighbours

and showing up for one another.

That quietly changed my own definition of success.

Living with less comfort also changed the way I experience everyday life.

Simple things suddenly became meaningful.

Finding the right document after months of administration.

Receiving a phone call saying, "It's finally approved."

Sharing an aperitivo after solving a problem that had taken months—or even years.

These moments became celebrations.

Not because they were extraordinary.

But because they represented movement.

Progress.

Hope.

Ironically, when daily life becomes more demanding,

many of the existential questions become quieter.

You don't spend every day wondering about your purpose.

You are too busy building a life.

Finding solutions.

Learning the culture.

Creating community.

Helping someone.

Accepting help yourself.

Learning to Embrace Life's Discomfort

And perhaps that is where purpose quietly lives.

There is another gift these years have given me.

Living with uncertainty forced me to become more creative than I had ever been before.

Not because suffering automatically creates art.

It doesn't.

But because discomfort keeps asking questions that comfort never asks.

How do you build a business without stability?

How do you create beauty when resources are limited?

How do you keep dreaming when the future is uncertain?

I realised that creativity is not simply about making beautiful things.

It is about responding to reality.

About imagining possibilities where others only see limitations.

Looking back, I don't think I would have discovered destination design if I had stayed in Brussels.

I would probably have continued designing reports, visual identities and publications—which I still genuinely love.

But living among abandoned terraces, forgotten villages, old olive groves and historic buildings waiting for a second life slowly changed the questions I was asking.

Instead of asking how to design better communication,

I started asking something entirely different.

How can a place make people feel alive again?

How can a forgotten village become a destination?

How can an abandoned building become a meeting place?

How can a landscape create belonging?

Without realising it, I had stopped designing graphics.

I had started designing possibilities.

Today, my work has naturally evolved into placemaking and destination design.

Not because I planned it.

But because the places around me quietly became my greatest teachers.

They taught me that every abandoned terrace holds a story.

Every neglected garden holds potential.

Every forgotten building is waiting for someone to imagine its next chapter.

I learned that beauty is often found in the imperfect—in weathered stone, untamed landscapes and messy, unfinished lives.

Perhaps we are not so different from the places we inhabit.

Looking back, I realise that what changed me most was not Italy itself.

It was living with less certainty.

Less comfort.

Less control.

That discomfort stripped away many expectations I didn't even know I was carrying.

It reminded me that comfort is a privilege.

But it can also become a cushion that slowly disconnects us

from one another.

What I found here was not an easier life.

In many ways, it became much harder.

But somewhere between the bureaucracy, the temporary homes, the unreliable internet, the breathtaking landscapes and the people who never let me face everything alone...

I discovered something I had been searching for all along.

Not happiness.

Humanity.

And perhaps creativity is born there too.

Not in comfort.

But in the quiet determination to keep creating meaning,

beauty and connection, even when life refuses to follow the plan.

I moved to Italy searching for a different life.

Instead, Italy quietly designed a different version of me.

I feel alive.

Resilient.

Resourceful.

Grounded in myself.

Creative.

Less attached to certainty.

More connected to people.

And surprisingly, more at peace with not having all the answers.

And incredibly grateful for the little I have, because that little has become my whole world.