by Katie McKenna
I finished packing minutes before we drove to the airport because I hoped, in that same irrational way that most college students do, that if I put it off for long enough, it just might go away.
Weeks before, and especially the day before I left to go abroad, I had no desire to leave Boston. Everyone kept telling me how much fun I would have, and I kept imagining how much I’d miss everybody and everything I’d grown so used to in America. For a kid who barely – and oftentimes didn’t – make it through sleepovers, this was a big step.
My family and friends meant a lot – perhaps too much – to me, they always have. Everyone told me it would be an incredible experience – but how could anything possibly be incredible enough to take me away from everything, everyone I’d grown to love the past 20 years of my life? What was I thinking?
And then, just like that, I didn’t even want to go back to Boston.
I couldn’t wait to see my family and friends, but I remember just wishing that everyone I knew in America could move over to my new Irish home. I’d grown used to the harsh winds, the lack of peanut butter, and the left side of the road. Strangers became my closest friends. The Irish pubs and clubs were (and still are) better than any college party I’d been to in America.
I’d gotten used to my outdated Nokia, I’d grown to love Irish tea and biscuits, Tayto crisps, big sweaters, Bulmers Irish Cider, the language, and I was disappointed I’d have to live without any of those gems.
The problem with this mindset of constantly missing things is that, well, you’re constantly missing things. Something, someone, somewhere else, is always on your mind, begging your attention.
I’ve been back in America for a year now, and I can’t say I miss Ireland quite as much as the day I boarded the bus out of Galway with tears sliding down my cheek, sniffle after sniffle, face hidden in my jacket so the lads sitting behind me wouldn’t notice and start “slaggin’” me. (Slaggin’: Irish for making fun).
I was dramatic about the whole departure – I gazed out my bus window and equated the days’ dark dampness with that of my mood, the rain that of my tears – but as any rational-thinking human being would know, the Irish weather was not damp especially for me. It was like that every single other day of the year.
I pretended it wasn’t.
When I left my apartment at 103 Gort na Coiribe that morning, my housemate Orla told me she hadn’t slept, she’d been crying for hours. We were all very emotionally unstable on May 18th, 2013.
Now that the tears have ceased, I’m able to look at my time in Ireland with a clear lens, with admiration for the things I did right and laughs for the things that I didn’t (and trust me, there are a lot of laughs).
I’ve learned that it’s important to miss people, places, things, because it means you’ve cared. It means you’ve taken a leap, made yourself vulnerable, you’ve taken a part of yourself and stapled it into a part of someone, something, somewhere else. And what is life without caring? Wasn’t it Ernest Hemingway’s character in Midnight in Paris who told us, “All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which is the same thing”?
The consequences of caring can be painful, and maybe being sentimental about the past can cause us to be a bit more dramatic than we should, but it also causes us to be a bit more feeling, a bit more human. We recognize and understand ourselves and our place in the world. My plan as of now is to continue making memories that I know I’ll miss later. Some may call that self-destructive, but I’d like to call it love.
Katie McKenna can be contacted at [email protected].