Talking to Alessia Bellafante is a bit like immersing oneself in DONNE CHE CORRONO CON I LUPI (we know, we’re breaking your balls a bit with all these authors, but it’s also time to get some culture outside the box). Just like Renée, Alessia seems to live in a total contrast between what she shows to the world for "role" and a very rich, cultured, profound and almost secret inner life. And from this eternal contrast sometimes she seems to want to escape and sometimes she seems to want to hide, a bit as if sometimes her own nature frightened her.
The mask we all wear
Whether you are a clerk, a doctor or a bartender, unfortunately your façade is often in clear contrast with what you really think and want. Often it is a game to the death where the mediation lies in staying halfway between your person and what you would like to be. And we should all be a bit sincere in saying that often we play a role that doesn’t belong to us but that it is mandatory to do so; often we even risk no longer understanding who we are and who we are not.
"Over the years I have really struggled so much to separate Alessia the worker from Alessia. Whoever works in hospitality must always be polite, smiling, most of the time servile and acquiescent, composed, pretty, patient and above all must clash with the idea that the customer is always right. I don’t want to be this. I want to be me and, when I want, discomposed and messy, impetuous and a troublemaker. Generally the Alessia that I love I see when there is music and she dances."
The other side of the coin
In an era where everything runs fast, where everything is perfect or perhaps where everything tends to have to be perfect, often we forget that life is also knowing how to stop because, as the good Seneca said "While we wait to live, life passes." And so it shouldn't be so strange to hear such a young girl talk about burnout, because unfortunately we are all on the razor's edge and many of us don't even have the capacity to understand that they are about to fall from the cliff.
"Burnout was the culmination of a period in which work and relationship toxicity was crushing me. I didn't know it, but I was a victim of DCA (Eating Disorders). I enjoyed touching my bones and working over 10 hours. It made me feel important and special. My body rebelled and I with it. I changed everything with the objective of improving myself. This was the elegance I made use of: trying to love myself. Eating well, doing physical activity, surrounding myself with sincere people and working the right amount... doing all this for me was the key to everything."
Awareness as a weapon
Like a modern heroine, Alessia seems to have transformed the anger inherited from the women of her family into strength, the difference is that she did it in the most right way, which is by going through it. In a society that pushes us not to live the pain, she self-destructed to then be a conscious leader. From here we like to take home something quite profound, an emotional intelligence has the capacity to transform pain into strength. In a context like that of the bar (and let’s not hide behind a finger) often sexist (ours is not a war or a stance, but having the capacity to notice it) we find a barmanager who is not afraid to show this side of the coin and above all who does not sweeten it, but does not shout it either.
"This limit was never hidden from me. I have always been aware of it. I am grateful to the women of my family who always clashed in patriarchal family contexts, who were victims of domestic violence and who suffered gender discrimination at work. As a child I converted their strength into rage. Today I feel more mature, I understood that shouting will not necessarily change the mind of who I have in front of me. I face challenges with more calm, at least I try. I know that for many of my bartender colleagues I am a ball-breaker and that for many of them my recognition is due uniquely to my appearance. Poor things. It’s fine with me. I am where I want to be and I know I deserve it."
Sometimes you just need to feel at ease
We are so used to wanting to differentiate ourselves from others that often we end up being "copy and paste". In the desperate attempt to make a difference, we find ourselves following the masses without even noticing or, worse, playing with differences losing sight of ourselves. Perhaps for this reason we find interesting someone who tries to differentiate themselves only to feel at ease.
"I wouldn't want a uniform. The uniform almost always reflects the identity of the place but not of the individual. For me it is paradoxical. I must be able to feel at ease and not forced into clothes distant from my personality, especially because I am in constant contact with strangers. My dream is the sea and life that stays at my pace, without anxiety of proving anything to anyone."
