Paper Cities of Tomorrow

I’m writing this on a plane from London to Calgary and feeling strangely calm.  As some of you know, I’ve had health problems for the past two years, which have led me to greatly hate travel.  Normally, I dread planes, buses, and cars driven by anyone but myself.  They only serve to make me feel more nervous and sicker than usual.  I hated the flight over here and the bus part of the bus tour I took to the west coast of Ireland.  But today, after the initial nervous episode, I feel ok.  I feel happy.  And my body is behaving itself so far, for once.

I’ve spent the last four weeks on vacation in Dublin.  I wanted to take a month off to really think about my life and where I’m heading, as I don’t usually have time.  My life has taken some rough turns since I graduated university in 2006, shortly after packing up all my stuff and moving across the country on my own.  I suffered a major depression, a horrible break-up, and of course, the dreaded health problems.  I’ve spent my days since then just trying to get through life as best I could.  Working, trying to foster my hobbies, and making some new friends.  I haven’t really had time to think about what I want to do or who I want to be, though I miss parts of myself that seem to have been lost along the way.

Someone related a quote to me on this trip, and this is probably badly paraphrased, “if you’re going to Ireland to try to find Ireland, you won’t.”  Well, I went to Ireland to try to find something in myself, and I found it in others.  This is why I’m so calm today, because I’m not the me I was when I left.  I’m someone who refuses to be the things I hate about myself.  I have renewed hope.  Even if the things I was unhappy about in my life back home are still there when I get back, I won’t let them affect me the same way.

I spent my first three weeks trying to come to terms with living my life how I wanted to.  I saw an old friend, who I completely adore because she is one of the kindest, most sincere, and most fun people I know.  I saw the new life she’s building for herself in a new country with a wonderful man.  I’m almost crying writing this because I am so genuinely happy for her.  Normally, I might be jealous, because her success would remind me of what I’m missing in my life, but it’s ok.  I know I’ll find it too.

Aside from visiting my friend in Wexford, and spending some time with her in Dublin, I spent most of my time alone.  I didn’t meet anyone outside of my friend’s friends and her friend’s friends.  It felt a little lonely, but I’m used to that, and in a way, I enjoy it.  Friends and family kept telling me to get out to the bars or to check out other parts of Ireland and do the tourist thing, to not waste my vacation.  And I felt guilty for not doing that enough, though I did manage to see many touristy things, many of which didn’t interest me much.  I wanted to live in another city as if I actually lived there.  I wanted to live without feeling like I had to do things, like work or whatever else other people wanted me to do.  And I did that. I enjoyed some time alone.  And I enjoyed some time with friends.  I did what I wanted when I wanted and I learned that I don’t have to apologize for that.  I didn’t go to the Guinness Storehouse or Dublin Castle.  I never got out on that day tour to Wicklow I was thinking about.  And that’s ok with me.  I’m not the kind of person who has to do everything and see everything.  I’m the kind of person who enjoys the pleasant peacefulness of complete freedom from routine.

I spent a lot of that first few weeks thinking hard about where my life is going.  I made some major decisions, which I won’t discuss right now.  I made some plans.  The last week reinforced my decisions.  It convinced me that what matters most is that I’m happy. I have things that make me happy: my family, my friends, and my cats.  All of the reasons people give me to keep doing what I’m doing have to do with money, and I really don’t care about money.  I know money means freedom, but if you have to work for years without really enjoying it, then are you really free?

I did finally get out of the city, aside from the visit to Wexford, this past Monday.  I took a train to Limerick to join a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher.  There were interesting and beautiful sights along the way, the cliffs were wonderfully windy, and I got some pretty awesome photographs. But the best part of the tour was the people: the fun-loving American women, the Italian professor of English literature who was in Ireland for a Morrissey conference (something I never knew existed), the tour leader with his Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous speaking style, and someone who I’ll talk about more later.  It made me wish I had taken a tour earlier.  But I don’t regret putting it off until I did, because everything worked out better than expected in the end.

I’ll admit that before the trip, I’d daydreamed a bit of meeting a cute Irish (or other) boy who I’d instantly connect with.  I blame the “Growing Pains” episode where Mike meets a girl in Europe and they hitchhike around arguing with each other.  Also, Before Sunset and PS I Love You.  But silly daydreams aside, I didn’t think it would actually happen, especially after three weeks of meeting nobody.  I got on the tour bus with the idea of just being friendly, and not letting shyness stand in my way. I’d have a good time chatting with new people and go on my way, alone back to Dublin, afterward.  After I got on the bus, and spent some time chatting with the American women, we stopped and picked up a lone guy in his twenties.  I didn’t notice him talking to anyone, and up until our second stop, I wasn’t sure he spoke English.  As we were waiting to get back on the bus, he asked if I liked the fort we’d just checked out.  We started chatting and I found out that we’re both engineers from Canada and both went to University in Ontario, which gave us loads to talk and laugh about.  We chatted all day, finishing with some Guiness in a pub across from the train station.  I suggested he hang out with me in Dublin on Friday, since we were both flying out of there on Saturday and I gave him my contact information.  He walked me to my train and I gave him a hug, because I couldn’t not give him one.  And then he kissed me, and it caught me by surprise.  I got onto my train, my mind riddled with one thought, I should have kissed him harder.

I was almost expecting to never see him again, but sure enough, he e-mailed me the next day from Killarney.  He suggested we go out on Thursday and have a proper pub night, because I had to get up really early on Saturday to catch my flight.  He showed up Thursday afternoon and I still felt sort of sick from the bus tour and I felt nervous about spending time with someone new, someone who isn’t used to my horrible health interfering with my life and our plans.  We sat for a bit, to let my tummy calm down, and then we went out.  I drank a few Irish ciders, even though I haven’t been drinking much lately because it makes me feel sicker.  It was fun and I was happily drunk when we got back.  Anyway, I won’t go into further details, but we had a great two days together.  It was a true vacation affair: no worries, no strings.  I had a minor crying breakdown on Friday, because I finally allowed myself to really think about what I didn’t want to go back to, even though I’d brought the worst of it with me (my health).  My boss quit at work while I was gone and it’ll be his last week when I get back.  He was the best boss and a great guy, and I worry about what will happen without him.  Or I did worry, and now I’m mostly curious.

The boy was calm and remarkably mellow, seemingly in all situations.  He seemed so happy with his life, even though there are some things that bother him about it.  Of course, I pried him for the secrets to this pervading mellowness.  Secrets that I seemed to know years ago, but lost along the way to real life.  He said that no matter what happens, it doesn’t matter.  I questioned him further because I know he cares about things and he’s passionate and he gets angry at times.  I think what he meant was in the grand scheme of the world, it doesn’t matter, our little problems don’t matter.  But I know they do matter, to us.  I’ve tried to adopt a Vonnegut-esque “so it goes” mentality in the past and at times, it has worked, but I have a hard time living my whole life that way.   I have always been able to put things in context after the fact as having worked out for the best.  I sort of feel that everything happens for a reason, even though I don’t truly believe that.  I tell myself that so I can make sense of things and find the best in every situation, and I’m usually successful, in hindsight.  I need to bring that attitude into the present, to find the mellowness of the “it doesn’t matter” mindset.

Sort of in the spirit of “so it goes” and “it doesn’t matter”, I’ve adopted my own credo, which looks toward the future as something to be changed instead of dwelling on the past or merely disregarding it.  And that new credo is: “fuck it”.  It’s fitting because I never swore until I was 18 or so, because I was a good girl and hearing me swear shocked people.  I’ve lived a lot of my life that way, trying not to shock people (at least those I care about).  But I can’t do that anymore.  I need to live life for myself and I’m not going to let other people, or even my own body, get in the way of that.  So fuck this sickness.  I’m going to fight it in any way possible and not let it interfere with my life.  Fuck what other people want me to do with my life.  If I do something crazy and stupid, I’ll suffer and learn from my own mistakes.  Fuck this nagging Catholic guilt I feel about doing things that I was always taught were “bad”.  On my vacation, I did what I wanted, and I will continue to do so.  Because it was my vacation, because it is my life.  I spend too much time weighed down by my to do list and things I said I’d accomplish, even if they were my idea, even if I only made promises to myself.  I spent this vacation trying to shake off that to do list, and even managed to strike some things off of it without trying all that hard.  I want to live my life, at least outside of the office, like I lived my vacation.  I don’t need a to do list.  If it’s important, I’ll remember it and get to it eventually.  Dear to do list, fuck you and the mindset you rode in on.

Did I swear enough in that last paragraph?  Irish people really seem to like the word “fuck”.

So back to the boy.  B, if you happen to somehow be reading this: thank you.  You were the kick in the pants I needed and the perfect way to wind up my vacation.  I probably would have spent my last two days worrying about going back to the real world, as I usually spend Sundays dreading Monday morning.  But maybe I won’t dread this Monday morning.  I certainly don’t dread the real world.  It will be what I make of it.  At least I know that I’m not leaving Ireland wishing I’d kissed someone harder.  Goodbye Ireland; goodbye B.  Maybe I’ll see you again and maybe I won’t, but you’ve definitely made your mark on me.

I know this post has been very self-centered, but I need it to serve as a reminder to me (and to any of my friends reading this, to remind me) of how I want to live the rest of my life. I’ve hardly written anything about Ireland and I probably won’t.  Go look at my photos on Flickr and then go see it for yourself.  It’s a beautiful country.  Go find your own Ireland.  It may be where you least expect it.