Private Collection: Amore Normale

By Silvia Olla

Private Collection: Amore Normale, or normal love in Italian, is a special anthology of real life stories and love stories. The stories features people from different ages, backgrounds and places around the world. This book is for those who love dreaming through real life stories and is looking for a shore of authenticity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244643461

Book preview

Private Collection: Amore Normale

Private Collection:

Amore Normale

SILVIA OLLA

Cover designed by Valeria Pola

2017

Copyright © 2017 by Silvia Olla

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Release: 2017

ISBN 978-0-244-64346-1

Silvia Olla

Singapore

This book is available in paperback format.

To Giorgio, Luciana and Marcella.

CONTENTS

Preface

ALIVE

18 SQUARE METERS

BITTERSWEET

CHAMPAGNE CONNECTION

CLOUDS

CONVERSATION

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

DREAM

FLIGHT OR FRIGHT

FREEDOM FROM ME

FULL MOON

ITALIAN

KARMA

MEANT TO BE

NO PLANS

OBSESSION

THIS COULD BE FOREVER

PINOT NOIR

REAL VALUE

RULES

SELF LOVE

SHE’S THE ONE

TO BE CONTINUED

TOO EARLY

WAR AND PEACE

Acknowledgments

Preface

I had been living in Singapore for just over two years when I started collecting these stories.

It was during a time when my perspective was shifting, and I wanted to concentrate on the things and people who really mattered, the ones worth keeping, the ones who brought depth and meaning to my life.

Eventually, this led to a passionate search for authenticity in everything I had accumulated over the years: relationships, passions, memories, the worries that kept me up at night and the thoughts that drove me during the day.

Going through every object, card, gift and photo, I felt the increasing need to pause and savour one of the simplest yet most beautiful feelings within the human experience: romantic love. As part of my quest, I approached people and asked them to share the life experiences that have shaped their unique perspectives of this timeless and undefinable emotion. 

Private Collection: Amore Normale, or normal love in Italian, is a special anthology of life stories and love stories, compiled as my personal tribute to love. Featuring people from different ages, backgrounds and places around the world.

A special thanks to all the contributors who gave of their time and stories so generously. Names and locations have been changed to protect the individual identities.

Let, Love rule without rules & Love! Love until the night collapses! - Thomas More & Pablo Neruda

Enjoy.

With Love,

Silvia

ALIVE

I am in pain today.

Last night, a very good friend of mine shared something with me that broke my heart. I didn’t want her or anyone else to know how much I was hurting, so I pretended that I was totally cool with what I heard. I kept drinking. I kept laughing and asking people about their weekend plans. While my mouth kept smiling, my mind was flooded by thoughts of the betrayal.

When I got home afterwards, I switched on some music, changed and fell asleep, hoping that I would forget everything that happened by the time I woke up.

I didn’t.

But despite how love could cut into me like it did, again and again, I found myself wanting to hold on to and keep alive the beautiful memories and feelings that it brought into my life. Despite how others could hurt me with their actions, I would never change or give up on love and how much it meant to me. I wanted my heart to be strong but not hard or hopeless.

So I got dressed, left the house and cycled to a bar to meet a friend.

@anatomy of love

Love makes you feel alive. It is a feeling that could last forever or only as long as a single breath.

You could fall in love at first sight or first scent, when you smell someone. You can fall in love without even realising it. It is a chemical reaction, unstoppable, leaving the mind behind. Neither you nor your body can do anything about it.

It starts in my stomach like a slow burn and it does not matter how long the sensation lasts. What matters more is the intensity of the feeling. It is not how long but not how much it makes you feel alive.

Love exists in many different forms, unbound by time or place. One of my best friends, she fell in love with her husband the minute she saw him. Then there is the beautiful story of my grandparents, who have been in love with each other for 50 years and counting. The grandmother of my best friend fell in love with a lovely gentleman who lived in the same retirement facility. She is 85 years old.

It comes and goes. It lives and dies. It evolves with life. After a long time spent being with someone, the feelings change and love becomes something different from what you started with. The thought that an intense love could fade and be replaced by something more like friendship – that scares me.

Perhaps that is why people nowadays are drawn to the quick, intense satisfaction of temporary gratification. Pleasure now and not later. No one has the patience to wait. Better to experience momentary passion than eternal love because who knows what that will become?

From what I see, real love is something organic. It grows and regenerates, becoming something much bigger than a sentiment, a whole that is bigger than the sum of two individuals. This happens when, for example, families are formed and when children are born. But it takes time to build and effort to maintain. After all, instant gratification will only give you so much.

Many people entertain the idea of The One, that there is a perfect partner out there waiting to be found, who is exactly right for you in all the ways you expect, right from the start. Many of my friends abandoned their relationships because their partner did not turn out to be the person whom they, their families or their friends had expected.

That is just plain silly.

The hardest question is not about finding love but about keeping it. Specifically, how do you keep it alive? There is no universal answer. The women in my family are very independent and, unlike before, they work hard at their own jobs and they do not stick to their husbands. Still, they have found a way to keep love alive and keep their relationships.

It is more and more a struggle for people to combine the lives that they desire as individuals with the life they desire together. When love brings together two people of dramatically different backgrounds, there will be sacrifice. But how much of myself and my desires can I sacrifice for someone? Should I?

If I give up my dreams, I am no longer me.

Who will you love then?

18 SQUARE METERS

When I was living in Paris, I attended a party organized by a guy from school. The wine was cheap, the crowd was noisy and the place was a mess. I managed to find a quiet corner to sit and drink. He joined me and it might have been the free flow of drinks but we ended up talking and flirting all night. When I got up to leave, my friend Anna gave me a little nudge to get his number. Why not? He’s a nice guy.

So I decided to take a leap of faith. In Paris, that means something.

We started dating.

Life was good. I was living in a student apartment and I still remember the coziness of the place, all 18 square meters of it. It was a small space but I had everything I needed. I was in a university I had