I have always loved Ireland. I do not resent the fact that my parents moved out of lovely Leitrim over 30 years ago in search of opportunity, but much of me has wondered how my life would have differed had they stayed.
It would be a simple one.
I'd be well-known in a small town, be spoilt with overwhelming views in every direction, and so used to the falling rain that I wouldn't even notice it.
Maybe I'd even be re-locating to California for graduate school, rather than the other way around.
It's been almost two and a half months since I moved across the globe, to a place that is quite familiar but quite new all at the same time.
It's the context that has changed. Ireland has always been a confusing entity, because it has included bits of vacation alongside large bits of home. I don't know how many times I have boarded flights to the Emerald Isle, between summers as a child, flash trips for weddings, post-graduation explorations... The number is unknown to me. But this time around, everything is different.
Every trip in the past has been either me...
1. being taken by my parents, along with my brothers, to visit all my aunts, uncles and cousins.
2. in search of the right fascinator to accompany an overpriced dress to a snazzy wedding.
or more recently...
3. exploring the country on my own, hopping from uncles to aunts to cousins, catching up and letting them get to know me as an individual, no longer a child spoken for by her parents. (Though my parents probably see themselves as free of their too-talkative daughter at this stage.)
The third option has combined with something wonderful recently.
I have become an adult, in a land far away, and people are treating me like one.
I get to visit the family I love on the occasional weekend, hopping on buses and trains to jet across the greener-than-green countryside to aunts and uncles for a couple days of non-quinoa meals, gin and tonics that will make your mouth water, and enough tea to keep you awake to chat the night away. (Or watch Love/Hate and Downton Abbey.)
Or spending days and weekends with cousins that have also grown into adulthood, joking about our childhoods, our differences and similarities, and hiking across mountains to our parents dilapidated stone houses, imagining what their lives must have been like growing up in rural Ireland.
I stay in Dublin the majority of the time (obviously), because I do plan to actually receive my Master's at the end of this lovely experience. Much to my mother's approval, as I think she was legitimately concerned I would disappear across the country and never show up to lectures.
Just kidding. She wasn't actually afraid of that. I hope.
But it's really too bad for you and me, Mom, that they don't give Masters of Drink and Dancing, because I think we would both fly through that program. (As everyone says, I am your daughter!)
The neighborhood we live in is emoji-with-hearts-for-eyes gorgeous. Like, brick mansions, iron fences, Newfoundlands, climbing ivy gorgeous. We live in an old brick semi-detached house that's been converted into a ton of apartments, meaning we are surrounded on the neighbouring blocks by wealthy young professionals, young families, Range Rovers and BMWs.
So, needless to say, my semi-rusty refurbished bicycle locked to the iron railing fits in nicely.
It's wealthy hipster territory, and our top-floor lofted ceiling apartment where the rain sounds far worse than it is, has me spoiled rotten.
Everyone says it is the absolute best place to live in Dublin, and with all of my Dublin-living experience... I agree.
We are within walking (or cycling if you're feeling fancy) distance of the best restaurants, pubs that feel like home, and our university campus.
The importance of those in my life is not related to the order in which they are listed above.
Graduate school, or "college" as it's called here, has been so very interesting. And just recently, has gotten to be quite intellectually challenging. I only know three people at home with their Masters degree, and I am SO VERY PROUD of them, because it is true what they say about graduate school. That it's all on you, and you either get it done or you don't.
This is why I am so glad to have been able to grow up over this last year: in my own perception of myself, in my parents and my family's eyes, and with my friends.
Well, not really with my friends. But I guess that's what happens when people meet you when you're 12: forever immortalised as a child, even at 24.
I had a moment on the train a few weeks ago, heading back to the apartment I pay the rent on, to eat the food I bought. I was thankful that I had reached a point where I knew what was expected of me: to be independent, to be responsible, and to be receiving "advice" from my parents rather than "help" financially.
The last year has been challenging, trying to grow up, but not trying hard enough. I was balancing wanting to scream "I am an adult! Treat me like one!" to my friends, while whispering "But Mom, Dad, never let me out of your sight."
And on that train, I was so glad to be here. I knew right then, there was nothing else for me to be doing at this exact moment in life. This is exactly where I am meant to be.
It has been such a seamless transition, that it has almost scared me? Like, sometimes I think we are capable of things we don't ever think we can handle, so when they come to fruition, all we can do is smirk.
I've been doing a lot of that. Smirking.
Jokingly at my colleagues in lectures.
Knowingly to a friend in the gym about the guy that's really into himself.
Laughingly across pint-filled tables in my favorite stomping grounds.
Bashfully with girlfriends about the rugby players in the Student Union.
And joyfully, to myself, on trains.
About how happy I am.
