From Dublin, for the Last Time

    

This is pretty much what I've been listening to on this trip. When I had a chance to choose my music, this was often it. I hope you find something you like! Enjoy!

By the time you read this, I'll be on a plane, over the Atlantic ocean, on my way home. Wow. Expect some aftershock posts to come.

     Closing remarks, that's sort of what this is going to be. Are you sad? Because I am very sad! It breaks my heart to think that I'll no longer be "Just three hours from London by train!" or just around the corner from a good patisserie, a ten minute walk to the river Seine, or the river Liffey, or the river Thames, and that I won't be able to pop into just any store and pick some Kinder, or a Mars bar, I can't throw some coins into a machine in the Metro and get a two pack of Beuno, and I can't walk into a McDo with a coupon from the bus and get a whole meal for two pounds, and have it actually taste delicious!
 
  I am trying to be really excited about going home..but I'm not. I'm excited to see my family and friends, sure, and I'm excited to take real warm showers and paint my nails and have regular access to a laundry machine...but I've gotten used to showering less often, restyling grimy travel wear, getting ready for the day in two minutes because there isn't a mirror around and it doesn't matter anyway. I've enjoyed the true concentration it takes to have a conversation with someone who you can't understand, and have learned better than to mentally convert your purchases back into USD (it's always scary!). I've stayed out late and stayed in all day, taken trains, planes, metro cars, trams, buses, moving walkways and bikes; my feet have stood on thousand year old marble floors, velvet from Louis XIV's time, cobblestone streets that millions of people have walked, and wooden bathroom floors through which you can see the salon below.
 
      And even though I am anticipating absolute devastation when I return to America, and I fully expect to cry on the plane, I am really looking forward to life! I'm excited to see how what I've learned, how I've lived and listened and waited and watched and talked, here, will change how I do those things when I "return" to my "regular" life. I don't think I am capable of having a "regular" life, especially not after I've seen what I've seen and heard what I've heard and stood where I stood. What about it all was so spectacular, you ask? Well, none of it. What I saw was thousands of people living different lives and doing different things and thinking different ways, just because they could, or because their parents did, or because they wanted to! I saw people chase dreams and lose hope and find love and break hearts, I saw some of the wealthiest people I might ever see, as well as some of the most poverty stricken. I smelled a perfume worth over 5,000 Euro, and the piss filled staircases of the Seine, and none of it was shocking, because it was all just how life is.

     And all of this got me thinking, what if..what if I thought like that, what if I dressed like that, what if I talked like that, what if I made those sorts of choices? I questioned EVERYTHING, about everything I knew and saw and thought and wanted.  And you know what I discovered? I really can be anything I want.
And this trip really did open my eyes the way everyone says things like this do.
And I really do feel like a changed person, now.
And I really do feel more fulfilled and sure of myself.
And I really do want to return, big time.
And it really was magic.
And it really was worth every single cent I paid for airfare, food, clothes, souvenirs, and school. Every euro cent, penny, and pence. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for helping me out here).

     And while I was here, and everywhere, I reevaluated who I am, and who I want to be, and what I want to work on. I have new goals for myself and new standards for myself, and new projects. (psst I've started TWO books...shhhh)

     So. I don't really know how to go home, I've never had to do it before. I am ten times more afraid to return as I was to go. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I left. No idea how much I could learn. And knowing what I've accomplished for myself...I feel armed and ready but no idea what I'm shooting at.
Here goes nothing.