Leave Room For Life

Three years ago today, I met two strangers on a ferry crossing the Adriatic Sea.

Their names were Giovanni and Alice. I could not have known it then, but almost everything about the life I live today would somehow trace its way back to that night. I wasn't supposed to be on that ferry, at least not according to any plan I had made. At the time, my life was largely organized around one dream: playing professional golf at the highest level I could reach. I had been training in Florida when my coach, who was from the U.K., gave me a piece of advice that would quietly alter the direction of my life. He suggested that before trying to make my way through professional golf in the United States, I should go learn how to play in Europe. Different courses, different conditions, different styles of golf, different cultures. There was an education waiting for me there that I couldn't get by staying where I was comfortable.

So I made a plan. I would fly to Denmark, compete in a couple of tournaments, travel south through Europe, and eventually arrive in Italy for Q-School. Golf was the reason for all of it. I had tournaments on the calendar, places I needed to be, and a very clear idea of what I was going there to pursue. Then life started adding things to the itinerary.

My friend Denis happened to be vacationing with his family in Croatia and invited me to join them during a break between tournaments. Croatia had never been part of my plan, but something in me said yes. Getting there wasn't particularly graceful. My train broke down on the way to Copenhagen Airport, which led to buses, walking, dragging golf clubs and luggage around with me, and figuring things out as I went. Eventually, though, I made it. A few days into my time in Croatia, after a great meal and some wine, Dennis's father told me about a ferry his family used to take when he was younger. It departed from Split around sunset, crossed the Adriatic through the night, and arrived in Ancona, Italy, around sunrise. I needed to get to Italy eventually. I hadn't booked a flight. His suggestion was simple: take the ferry. I thought, why not?

So a few days later, I took a bus to Split and bought a ticket. While waiting to board, I noticed a girl in line. Nothing happened. We didn't speak. I simply noticed her, and something in me did too. It was one of those intuitive feelings that arrives without an explanation. I looked away, collected my things, and began the exhausting process of dragging all of my golf equipment and luggage onto a giant steel ferry in the August heat.

Once aboard, I learned something I probably should have figured out beforehand: unless you had booked a cabin, there wasn't really somewhere designated to sleep. People began unfolding blankets, sleeping bags, and even air mattresses wherever they could find space. I started searching for somewhere to settle in for the nearly twelve-hour journey. Then I saw the same girl again, and again, that feeling came. Sit near her. I had no reason for it. I didn't know her. I didn't know anything about her. But there was something about her that felt safe and trustworthy. How often do we actually understand our intuition when it speaks to us? Most of the time, the explanation seems to arrive much later, if it ever arrives at all.

So I sat down nearby. Alice’s boyfriend, Giovanni, joined her. We greeted each other politely, as strangers do, and for a while that was all we were. Then little things started happening around us that were universally funny, the kind of moments that don't require much shared language to understand. Someone would look over. Someone would laugh. Soon we were talking. I learned that midnight would be Giovanni's thirtieth birthday, which naturally meant that a quiet ferry ride across the Adriatic was no longer an option. We had to celebrate. We shared a drink, sang, danced, and somehow turned a night of transportation into a birthday party between people who had only met hours earlier.

As we talked, Giovanni and Alice told me they were psychotherapists. It made sense almost immediately. There was a gentleness to both of them that I noticed before I knew much else. They were thoughtful, curious, kind, and extraordinarily welcoming. My Italian was very limited, their English carried us far enough, and somehow none of that mattered very much. At some point that night, I looked through my backpack. I had several journals with me because I was constantly writing thoughts, observations, ideas, and pieces of whatever I was experiencing. Among them was a new leather journal cover with fresh pages that my mom had recently given me.

I looked at it and thought about Giovanni. Here was someone whose work involved sitting with people through some of the darkest and most complicated moments of their lives. I imagined how many thoughts might eventually be written on those pages, whether for the people he helped, for himself, or simply for whatever life taught him along the way. So I gave it to him, along with a Chicago Cubs pen I had with me. There was no reason behind the gesture beyond wanting him to have it. I wasn't thinking about what might come from it. I certainly wasn't thinking about where it might lead me. He became emotional receiving it, and somewhere inside that exchange between strangers, something shifted.

Before the ferry reached Italy, Giovanni and Alice invited me to continue celebrating his birthday with their friends a couple of weeks later in their hometown of Turin. I told them I would love to, although I genuinely had no idea where I would be by then. We exchanged information and agreed that if life allowed it, I would come. When we arrived in Ancona the next morning, they drove me to the train station and asked where I was going. I told them I didn't know. My plan was to look at the departure board, find the next train leaving, buy a ticket, and see where it took me. It happened to be Rome, and so my adventure through Italy began.

About ten days later, I realized my travels were bringing me north again. I messaged Giovanni. The invitation still stood, and soon I was making my way to Turin to celebrate the birthday of someone who, less than two weeks earlier, had been a stranger sitting beside me on a ship. I arrived at the party and opened the door, and there she was. In the back of the room. Long blonde hair, a black dress for the '90s theme, and an electric smile that seemed to stop something inside of me. Let’s call her, “Giulia”.

We were introduced, but neither of us thought too much of it at the time. There was a party happening around us, new people everywhere, singing, dancing, laughing, and at some point even a hot tub that wasn't particularly hot. By around four in the morning, everyone had gone home. I stayed the night at the house of another new friend, Kevin. The next morning, over coffee, he offered to show me Turin. I hadn't planned on staying, but by then perhaps I was beginning to learn something about plans.

So I stayed. Kevin showed me the city. We ate pizza. Later we met everyone from the night before in a park. We sat around talking, laughing, being ridiculous, and enjoying one another's company. What I remember most is how strangely normal it felt. These were people I had barely met, yet somehow I felt as though I had known them far longer. We finished the day eating sushi together and eventually went our separate ways, but we kept talking.

About a week later, they invited me back to Turin to go to a disco. I was staying near Milan, practicing and preparing for golf, and once again I had every practical reason to remain where I was. Once again, I thought, why not? That night eventually brought us to Monte dei Cappuccini, looking out over Turin. And there, above a city I had never intended to visit, I found myself alone with the girl from the party with the long blonde hair and electric smile.

Giulia and I kept talking after that. Soon she was moving to Ancona for work, the same city where my ferry had first delivered me into Italy. She told me that if my travels ever brought me back that way, I was welcome to visit. Then a golf tournament ended early because of weather. Another disruption. Another opening. I messaged her. I had some unexpected time. Could I come see her? She said yes. So I returned to Ancona.

Our first night, we walked through the city and watched lightning illuminate the sky over the sea. The next day, we decided to go to the beach. Transportation wasn't cooperating, so eventually we took a taxi. By the time we arrived, the sky looked increasingly threatening. We hiked down from the top of a cliff and discovered something strange: at a time of year when the beach should have been full, there was almost nobody there. We put our things down and decided to walk before the storm reached us. We walked to the end of the beach and turned around, and then the storm moved just enough. Above us appeared a double rainbow.

We both stopped. I don't know that every meaningful moment in life needs an explanation. I don't know that every coincidence needs to be turned into something larger than itself. But I know what the two of us felt standing underneath that special sky. We looked at each other and somehow understood the same thing. We shared a kiss under the most remarkable double rainbow. It was the nudge we both needed.

Three years later, it is difficult for me to comprehend the distance between the life I thought I was traveling toward and the life that was quietly beginning around me. I went to Europe because of golf. I went to Denmark because of tournaments. I went to Croatia because Dennis happened to invite me. I took the ferry because his father happened to tell me a story over dinner. I sat where I sat because something inside of me told me to. I met Giovanni and Alice because of that seat. I went to Turin because of a journal, a birthday, and an invitation. I met Giulia because I opened a door at a party I was never supposed to attend in a city I never planned to visit.

And somehow, from all of that, a life grew. Turin became more than a place on a map. It became a community. Those strangers became friends. Giulia became the woman I love. Italy became somewhere that changed me. The life I once thought I understood expanded into something I could never have planned because, at the time, I didn't even know enough to dream of it.

I think about that often now. We spend so much of our lives trying to construct the future. We make plans, set goals, create timelines, and convince ourselves that if we can just make enough good decisions, perhaps we can control where everything leads. I still believe deeply in having a vision. That vision is what put me on the other side of the world in the first place. But perhaps the plan is only responsible for getting us moving. What happens once we begin moving requires something else: openness.

The willingness to take the invitation. To listen to the recommendation. To speak to the stranger. To trust an intuition you cannot yet explain. To give something away without wondering what you might receive in return. To stay another day. To take the ferry instead of the flight. To walk toward the storm instead of deciding the day has been ruined. None of those decisions felt particularly consequential when I made them, and that's what amazes me most. Life-changing moments don't always announce themselves as life-changing moments. Sometimes they look like an ordinary conversation, a broken train, an unexpected invitation, a journal in a backpack, an empty beach, or an open seat beside two people whose names you don't yet know.

Three years ago today, they were Giovanni and Alice, two strangers on a ferry. Today, when I trace the life I have built backward, I eventually arrive at that ship crossing the Adriatic. There is something profoundly humbling about realizing that some of the greatest things in my life came from things I never planned.

I still have enormous dreams. I still make plans. I still believe in knowing what you want and pursuing it with everything you have. But perhaps that is the observation I would leave with anyone reading this: don't become so committed to the life you planned that you become unavailable to the life trying to find you.

Pay attention to the small things that pull at you. The invitation you almost decline. The stranger you inexplicably feel comfortable talking to. The place you feel compelled to visit. The extra day you hadn't planned to stay. The generous gesture that has nothing in it for you. The quiet voice that says go, stay, ask, give, or sit here. Not every intuition will rearrange your life, and not every detour will lead somewhere extraordinary. That's not the point. The point is to remain available enough to find out.

Have a vision. Make the plan. Chase the dream with everything you have. Just leave a little room for life to surprise you. Because three years ago, I thought I was traveling through Europe in pursuit of one dream. I had no idea I was being introduced to another life entirely.

And all I had to do was be willing to take the seat.

Dino