The Boy Who Ran Everywhere But Here: Coming Home Now

I spent decades outrunning myself. Turns out, the finish line was home.I used to think reinvention was bravery. That running, changing cities, names, careers, accents, was proof I was evolving. Turns out, it was just me trying to outpace the kid I used to be. The one with the mortadella sandwich.I was six when my parents brought me from Italy to Canada. Richmond Hill, to be exact. The land of Wonder Bread, hockey gear, and peanut butter sandwiches cut into perfect triangles. My lunchbox didn't fit in. Neither did I.While the other kids unwrapped their crustless PB&Js, I opened mortadella on ciabatta, thick, oily, unapologetically Italian. And I felt the sting. Not just the eye rolls, but the way silence tastes when you're the only one who brought something different. The smell of my heritage, I decided, was the smell of embarrassment.So I did what any kid desperate to belong does: I started sanding myself down. No more Italian at home. No more rolling my R's. No more anything that made me too much or too other. If I could just shrink enough, blend enough, maybe I could finally disappear into the background and call it safety.By fifteen, I found...