Ireland De-brief and Other Sentimental Shit

Disclaimer: So I have somewhere around ten or eleven drafts of half-finished blog posts chillin' out on my computer. I've decided that they aren't going to be finished. Instead, I'm going to try to use this blog as a journal in the loosest sense of the word. So here's a tangent-filled summary of how my trip to Ireland went.


I want to change the world, instead I sleep. -Ingrid Michaelson "Keep Breathing"


To this point, I've really not done all that much in the way of actively participating in my life.  I go through the motions and wake up every day, fulfill my obligations and then go to bed. Rinse and repeat. And I'm only 20 years old... which is a scary thought. But when I arrived in Ireland, my heart fell out of my chest and landed with a thud on the bog, right next to some sheep shit. 


From where I see it, I have two options at this point. 


Option 1: Graduate with a BA in anthropology, find a job in the states, work, have a family, retire, and die a successful human being. So basically your cookie-cutter 'dream' life, complete with white picket fence (or barbed-wire fence, depending on the neighborhood). Think MASH (go ahead and click it), those of you who played that horrible, horrible game that almost always ended up giving me the exact opposite of a dream life (weird kid in the corner whose name I don't remember, garbage truck, parrot, 8 kids, in Vegas).  


...yeah. No thanks.


Option 2: Live my life with the passion and vigor I discovered I had in Ireland. Like, actually live. College life isn't a life at all, or at least one that is maintainable. It's four years of your life stuck in the liminal stage between being an adult (18) and actually being an adult, a stage normally complemented with copious amounts of alcohol and alcohol- and ramen-stained textbooks. Don't get me wrong, I love being in college. It's the only time in my life that I will be able to say "It's okay, I'm a college student!" in answer to some of those really awkward questions that only get more awkward as time goes by (Prime example: post-Halloween night walk of shame). You can't do this shit forever.


So yeah... I'm gonna go with Door #2.


I want to live again. I hadn't really felt alive until I went to Ireland and got my hands a bit dirty on this god-forsaken, beautiful mountain with sheep bleating 24/7 learning how to do archaeology. Whether it was the country, the people, the scenery, the work, or the independence of being in a foreign place alone, being there for seven weeks inherently changed the way I look at things. I fell in love with life all over again, after being out of the game for a while and really just robot-ing my way around. I really lived while I was there, though my parents seem to think it was an altered version of reality. That could be due to the ridiculous amount of Guinness that now flows through my veins. But I know it's actually due to the fact that while I was getting covered in mud and nearly getting simultaneously blown and rained off a mountainside, I found myself and I found what I want to do with my life (and also found my favorite beer).  To me, it was more real than any part of my life had been up until that point. It still is.


I found myself while I was there, and I think what depresses me the most about being back is not knowing whether or not I'll find myself again while I'm here. I may know more about myself now, but the environment (social, physical, mental) is so dramatically different here, kind of like how it would look to put a dryer sheet over a camera lens. I missed my family and my friends, but now I miss myself.  When I left Achill, it was worse than any breakup I had ever been in (which is definitely a few..). The only thing that's keeping me sane is knowing that it's temporary. My resolution is to live every day that I have to be away from archaeology and Ireland to the fullest and as if it could be my last, rather than mope around like I have been because I have to be here. If I have faith in anything, it's that I'm going to go back and I'm going to do all that I can to stay. 

So how was my trip to Ireland? Well, it was completely eye-opening and life-changing. 

I gained weight, got really, really dirty, collected more scars, learned some archaeology, met unforgettable people, spent a lot of money, fell in love, and became acquainted with myself. I'm going to carry that with me every day so that I can find that vigor and passion for life here, and I think that's the best way to live. At least until I return, that is. In my eyes, once you've found your place and your passion, sitting around and missing it is bad form when you've a plan to do something about it in the near future. Here's to rolling green hills and dirty trowels!


Just for nostalgia's sake: