This island has given me so much. It has given me the beginnings of my true soul and self seeking. It has given me absolute love and true kindness. And it has given me the ability to grasp my biggest and wildest dreams without hesitation. It is a place that occupies more love in my heart than my own country. A place that feels more like home than the place I was born. This island is a place of pride for me. Pride in my work, pride in myself, pride in my opportunities, pride in my friends, pride in something that is so great I feel like an imposter for saying it feels like mine at all.
When I arrived here, I hated the smell of the roasting barley from the Guinness factory one block over, but now I wish I could own a candle of that smell. When I arrived I was in a seven year relationship that I had outgrown. Now I have grown so immensely I don’t want to go back to the U.S. for fear I may turn back into the small nestling I was. I arrived knowing I would change, but not in what way. I landed here willing to do the work and take whatever path came up on the horizon. I arrived here not even realizing how much I hated myself because I lived for other people’s comfort, and am leaving never wanting to treat myself so badly again. I have cried and gutted myself from the inside out like the pumpkins we carved on Halloween. I have laughed and inhaled joy stronger than the smiles of the children on the Late Late Toy Show. This island is one of the most prime examples of a place that can take its abundant suffering and create unadulterated love and kindness from it. In every way, Ireland reaps what it sows, and it is graciously willing to share the harvest with me. Nowhere else have I experienced this kind of pure compassion for strangers despite the recent and foregone memories of adversity which could so easily create dubious stinginess. It reminds me of why I choose compassion as my strongest moral every second of every day.
On our first day here, Tony said that he wanted this city to feel like home to us by the time we left. I didn’t realize how angry with him that comment would make me, until I felt that I didn’t want to leave my home. I have never felt that Vermont is my home in the sense of pride and love that most have for their home. It is where I had 22 Christmases and 22 birthdays. It is where my grandparents are buried and my parents work. It is where my accent and cousins hail from, but it does not give me the warm, fuzzy feeling of home. It is not where I grew up because I am still growing. A fledgling that refuses to give up on the sky beyond the nest. I have always looked upwards, I just haven’t been able to see the sky beyond the obscuring branches of the Green Mountains. Ireland is where I am truly growing, where I finally spread my wings and took the leap into discovering my own self worth. Each feather on my wing a piece of what has gotten me here today; my unwavering persistence, my thirst for knowledge, my copious compassion, and most importantly the people around me that have revealed the messages I needed to hear at the most providential moment.
But the courage and adrenaline to take the first jump often feels better than the crash to the ground itself. I have struggled recently with finding a balance between speaking my mind as my truest self and being abundantly kind to others as I have in the past. As a compassionate person, the feeling of hurting others will hurt you more. And as a born and raised people pleaser, harming others will hurt you ten fold. It is in this space of hurting and grieving that I have found the potential to grow. The continued realization that I will never be perfect, despite my past naive attempts, is a difficult one. I am ever evolving, and I will continue to hurt myself until I have self compassion, as I have for others.
Although I am high on the feeling of tapping into my truest self, I am desperately looking for a way to cling to this island. Having to leave Dublin feels like having to give up the newest, and most important part of myself that I have ever discovered. It feels like I have been pushed from the nest too soon, but magpies always push their young out quickly. I must learn how to live on the ground at home before I can take flight around the world. I am beginning to understand that my love for Ireland and my love for myself are separate, yet indivisible somehow. I can continue to metamorphose my identity anywhere. I do not need to be in Dublin to take the essence of its beating heart with me everywhere I go. However, that does not mean that I won’t make every effort to come home. The grief of parting with Ireland may be agonizing, but to quote my favorite Dub; “what seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” (Oscar Wilde)
Remember to bring compassion wherever you go!