My father would always warn me, “you’d better start learning Italian and think about moving back, you don’t know what might happen that will have to make you leave here.” Living abroad was all I had known my whole life — I am the cliché story of a child of expatriates, a Third Culture Kid, who was born and raised outside of her country of origin.

The tropical climes of Southeast Asia was my home for most of my life — “here” meant Malaysia, where I had lived for 20 years — and aside from returning for annual summer holidays, I never lived in Italy.