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[jennygoesbrogue]

Where do I even begin?

A few days ago my friend got in touch with me to tell me she was disappointed I didn’t keep up with this blog. In her words: “It would've been really cool to see you go from complete anxiety to totally killing it (like I knew you would).“

Boy, do I agree with her. I always knew that starting a blog would likely result in my swift abandonment once things got even a little emotionally challenging. It takes a lot of vulnerability to write. Especially about feelings. Especially about really complex feelings that have to do with anxiety, change, adulthood, growing older, and identity.

It’s hard to be public about personal things, let alone put them into words. There’s always the pressure to make it pretty. Entertaining. Wrap it in a package of poetry and humor and top it off with a “life lesson” for a bow. Especially when the reality is not only pathetic but mind-numbingly mundane. What was I supposed to write in my early blog posts? “I hate it here. There’s dog shit all over the streets. I can’t stop crying, and I have to eat Doritos every day for it to feel somewhat familiar.” Ain’t that cute?

And the beginning was tough. I knew it was going to be, but knowing you're doing something that's hard for you doesn’t really prepare you for the emotions of living it. And I can write reasons up-and-down about why moving overseas for a year when I was 30 was particularly difficult for me--But I don’t need to justify that to anyone, even though I’ve tried.

But I do believe it’s an important process when moving into new stages of your life to write about the things you're moving on from. So I’m here. All I can say is that at some point, things changed. And things became fun, and beautiful, and started to feel like home. And I just feel really, really grateful.

I’m grateful for:

My friends at home who let me continuously text them memes and about life shit and told me about their dramas and never made me feel like my absence changed our friendship.

Jenna, who came to visit me and show me around my favorite city in Ireland (Galway). It’s one of my favorite memories here.

The friends, and exes, that read and edited my homework so I could get their perspectives. You were always champions of my work and intellectual passions.

Elizabeth who came and visited me early on and held my hand when I needed help. I remembered that when you’ve dug yourself into a pit of anxiety, sometimes you need to ask someone for help pulling you out. She also encouraged me to not judge myself for struggling, which is perhaps the biggest piece of wisdom here (there’s your bow, folks).

My friends here. You are the ones who are truly breaking my heart to leave. I left high school, transferred colleges, and left New York City with a lack of concern about the fact that I was moving on from people, and likely wouldn’t cross paths with them again. (To be fair, those friends were in NYC, not Ireland, Spain, Italy, etc.) I also had my ride-or-dies in Westford, so I never got too emotionally attached back then. I foolishly believed that I could come here and get out unscathed, but you guys have burned yourselves in my heart. Funny, smart, cool, caring, and brave enough to come up to me and say “I don’t know anyone here, can we be friends?” It feels unreal that I’ll be living a life where I don’t text or work or cook with or even think about you every day. You guys know who you are--and also seem to be the types who don’t want me, your weirdo friend, writing about you on the internet. It feels wrong having these parallel lives in Dublin and Boston. My home will always be open to you, wherever I live.

My functioning liver, which has not given out (yet).

My Irish family, who took in both me and my friends with open arms. Who shared stories about my grandfather and late nana with me. And who gave me just enough shit about being an American as was necessary.

My cousins and uncles who visited me. Especially my uncles: coming from a huge family means I don’t know everyone as well as I want to, and I’m so glad I got some one-on-one time with them. 

My shitty, soul-sucking job that paid me enough money for me to afford to live over here.

My amazing parents who also financially and emotionally supported me by visiting multiple times and bringing me on your travels.

I’m sitting here, looking out my window, and for some reason, it smells like fried potatoes. I can hear seagulls and my neighbor’s kid banging on the keyboard next door (it’s annoying). And I’m just wondering what I did to deserve to be so fortunate. Because in the grand scheme of things, not a lot of people get the opportunity to do what I have done. Writing this is kind of an exercise in recognizing that. And expressing gratitude is supposed to make you happier, I guess, but instead, my heart aches.

In October, I wrote in my (private) diary about the suffocating anxiety I was wrestling with, and I ended the sentence with something like “There is a very good possibility that at the end of the year you will have fallen in love with this place, or at least grown to tolerate it.” I was right. 

In the same entry, I wondered when I’d start to feel brave. And when it would start to feel like I was living “my life” again. And it all fell into place remarkably soon after that. I remember after taking my final exam of the semester how I was eager to get home and pack for my flight out the next morning. A group of classmates looked at me and said: “well I thought we could all go grab a beer?” I was kind of taken aback that anyone wanted to hang out with me before I left for a month. So I got the beer with them. And then it became my life again.

[jennygoesbrogue]

Three times around the sun.

I’m sitting on my mattress in my bedroom. A few nights ago, a few screws came loose out of my bed frame, resulting in constant creaking and in general a sense of dangerousness when I would roll over in my sleep. And now my bed frame, a beautiful vintage brass bed frame that my mom bought in her mid-twenties and passed along to me, rests against a wall amid curtainless windows and cardboard boxes.

So I’m sitting on my mattress on the floor. With no sheets because those are packed. It is starting to look like a drug den in this small corner. If it wasn’t for the soft cozy quilt spread over it.

I don’t think it’s really hit me that I am going to be living somewhere new yet. Across the Atlantic. This place still feels like home. Out of everywhere I’ve lived that isn’t my parent’s house, this is the place I’ve lived the longest. These are the walls that have watched me grow into adulthood. I have a regular coffee shop nearby. I’ve grown (and killed) plants here. I’ve hung art and carefully curated each corner.

There are the bad experiences, of course, like finding an empty plastic bag of nuts that had clearly been nibbled through by a mouse. It wasn’t perfect, and I was ready to leave the apartment, but I almost feel like I am abandoning my nest. I keep rearranging boxes to try and make it somewhat presentable, to no avail.

I only have two more nights here, and it still feels like it’s mine. Like next week I’ll be living the same life, but I won’t be. When does that change?

[jennygoesbrogue]

The simple joy of trashing your belongings.

The first day of summer has come and gone, and so the reality of the next year is starting to sink in. I have to start planning packing all my things, and throwing out things I know I will not miss. I have to start committing to quality time with the people I love and will miss deeply. In a few months, I won’t get to witness New England’s best season, or go apple picking with my best friends and boyfriend, and that’s hard for me to swallow.

Simply put, I don’t handle excitement well. Excitement for me is mainly anxiety. I’m sure from the outside looking in, my year in Ireland looks like a dream come true, and once I’m there, it will be. Until then, I’m consumed with “What am I going to do? How am I going to do this? Who can help me? If they really speak English over there, how come I can’t understand anything on their damn websites?”

I have a “do-er” personality, and therefore I feel like if I am not doing something productive every single day until I get there, then I must be dropping the ball on something, even if this isn’t the reality. Here’s where the joy comes in: Since my life will be packed into storage and one or two suitcases next year, I’ve been getting a big thrill from throwing things out. It’s productive! I swear!

Socks/underwear/clothes that are slightly old and dirty?

Why do laundry, throw them out.

Old makeup starting to get a bit cracked?

Everything has a place and the place for this is in the trash.

Candles I am bored with, but haven’t been fully burnt?

It’s ok to let it go.

All of this is like taking a big exhale, and then a mischievous smirk of pride, and I deeply endorse it.

If you need help with this, I’ll share a trick my dad taught me: Take a drawer of junk and dump it in a trash bag, then take 60 seconds to pull out anything you absolutely need. Once it’s in the thrash bag, your brain will think “this is garbage” and won’t want it anymore. It sounds sinister, but it works.

I once wrote a blog about simplifying your life à la Thoreau, but I love buying things. Pretty, colorful things and things that smell good, so not shopping has been a challenge to say the least, but throwing out things...boy does it feel great.

[jennygoesbrogue]

Going Brogue

Hi friends. Future articles will automatically migrate over, but if you’d like to read (my very rambly writing) about my decision to go to school in Ireland for a year, feel free to head to http://jennygoesbrogue.tumblr.com/.

[jennygoesbrogue]

***BREAKING NEWS***

Welp. It took me 7 months. Roughly 3 of those simply procrastinating or changing my mind, or writer’s block, or just not feeling like getting my passport photo taken (who does?), but I did it.

Citizenship = Obtained

Master’s Program in Marketing = Accepted, Trinity College '18

Passport = Pending

In between all of this paperwork and fretting, my life has been quite chaotic. I now find myself unemployed, which may mean more time for blogging. Yay!

[jennygoesbrogue]

The chaos of applying for citizenship. This is only half the legal documents I needed.

[jennygoesbrogue]

When going through the application process, looking at old birth certificates and legal documents from my grandfather’s bloodline, I stumbled on this fantastic picture of my mom (far right) with ironing-board straight hair and bell bottoms looking so so done with high school.

[jennygoesbrogue]

9/23/2016

My application for Irish citizenship officially makes it to Dublin. ☘ New post soon!

[jennygoesbrogue]

The Whys vs the Why Nots

As soon as I posted that first entry, I immediately felt punched in the gut with doubt. This isn’t new, & I’m not used to it. After a couple months of being cavalier about “well when I get the hell out of here…” to a few of my close friends, I had to start making actual progress in the making the whole Going to Grad School/Moving Overseas for a year thing become a reality. Each step forward (including tweeting and swiftly deleting the declaration on Bloomsday, and having to tell my boss, earlier than I had planned to, when she offered me a new work opportunity) has been followed by a wave of anxiety, namely consisting of two main questions that wake me up in the middle of the night and refuse to release me back to sleep:

1. What the hell am I thinking?

This whole hatchling is really an idea put into my head by my friend Elizabeth. The summer after we graduated college, we spent days sunbathing by the pool discussing the year she was about to spend in Wales to complete a Master’s degree. Elizabeth’s reason for this was the specific program, but on average, European programs are (1) less expensive than ones in the U.S. and (2) can be done in a year. It seemed, and still seems, like a no-brainer.

To say I was envious would be an understatement. I love to travel; I admire her guts & gumption; at the time, I toyed with the idea of riding on her coattails, but couldn’t think of something to study–cinema studies? comp. lit.? I flirted with a slew of terrible academic ideas before I gave up.

Over six years, I never lost interest in that as an option, and now that I am ready to go back to school (for business, btw… gotta get that ROI), its the only option that actually makes me excited. 

2. Who the hell do I think I am, anyway?

Listen. There’s no way around this, I am a security-junkie. What on earth makes me think I can go across the ocean, away from my family, my friends, my stuff, and the life I’ve built for myself here? Who do I think I am to assume I am competent enough to figure out health care, or learn my way around a new city, or make new friends (for the first time in years)? What if I am not a good student, anymore?

Basically, I really need to chill the fuck out. No, I’m not my friend Steve who spent 4 years traveling the world, documenting his shenanigans. But I have to learn to give myself a little credit for being capable, and willing to hang a “back in 5 minutes” sign over my current life while I go spend some time in an English-speaking country where I have family. 

Something has to change. Big. Despite the seemingly insurmountable, and growing, list of obstacles that I foresee in the near future (Visas!?), that sometimes is responsible for the abuse my pillows endure at night, the idea of part-time or full-time school here and now is what sits inside me and gives me a sense of dread.

[jennygoesbrogue]

Trinity College Library- Dublin- Ireland. Photo by Beth Kirby

[jennygoesbrogue]

The Irish Cliffs of Moher

Who is my father in this world, in this house, At the spirit’s base? My father’s father, his father’s father, his— Shadows like winds Go back to a parent before thought, before speech, At the head of the past. They go to the cliffs of Moher rising out of the mist, Above the real, Rising out of present time and place, above The wet, green grass. This is not landscape, full of the somnambulations Of poetry And the sea. This is my father or, maybe, It is as he was, A likeness, one of the race of fathers: earth And sea and air.

[jennygoesbrogue]

How did I end up here?

In summary: 2016 has been the year I may be going a little overboard with Ireland.

It started off as a simple New Year’s Resolution. After years of procrastination and convincing myself the paperwork would be unbearable (despite many people convinced that “all you need us your grandfather’s passport! simple!”), I finally decided to give myself a WHOLE YEAR to complete ONE task: Apply for Irish Citizenship through my Grandfather who was born in Belfast.

I fell in love with the country, the landscape, the people, and the smell of burning peat, when I visited almost half my life ago, and staking some actual, legal claim to my heritage has been a goal ever since. I grew up cherishing the tornado of accents, stories, and laughter that came along with living within an Irish family, with aunts, uncles, cousins of various removal levels, visiting every couple of years. And fascinated with the music, the art, the literature… also the actors. Ask me about my Domhnall Gleeson obsession. Or my Cillian Murphy one. Or Colin Farrell.

By January, I had seen Brooklyn twice in theaters, was  brushing up on my Yeats and Beckett, and bracing myself for the long road of the application process ahead.

And then the first derailing happened. A derailing in the form of a traditional Irish fiddler from Mayo who said things like “Sorry, must’ve arse-dialed you,” and made it very difficult for me to motivate myself to handle the paperwork nightmare because, well, why would I concern myself with a country across the Atlantic when I had Ireland RIGHT HERE.

Despite musicians’ reputation for being stable partners, things did not work out, which left me with only 8 more months to scramble and complete my resolution. To add to my list of “to-dos,” somewhere during the time with the fiddler, I made another decision: to go back to graduate school, and to do it abroad (an idea planted into my head by my favorite ex-pat, Elizabeth).

And so, I am applying to graduate schools. In Dublin. And that’s what this blog is for, to document, inspire, communicate, capture, and ponder on the whole experience of planning, applying, waiting, and finding home in a place so far away from everything the way it is in my life right now. I also used to love writing, and I haven’t written anything other than business communication in ages.  I’ve only blogged once before, forever ago. I’m hoping this will give me practice and a newfound comfort in my own voice.

Here’s hoping I get into school–All this will be mighty embarrassing, otherwise!