Reentry Shock

It has been one week since I hugged Melina goodbye in the middle of Grattan Street, buried my face into my UCC sweatshirt, and let the tears roll intermittently through my 11 hours of travel.

Maryland is warmer than I left it, greener too, and I seem to have settled so seamlessly into life at home that I wonder (I, in fact, began to wonder on the plane) if I had ever been to Ireland, ever spent the last five months in a dirty student apartment on Cork City, ever flew to Germany, ever saw Rome, ever gone to the Quad or been a café regular. It all seems so distant from this here, now, my wide desk in my muggy room, screen windows and a bottle of Yuengling. Perhaps my high alcohol tolerance is that last remnant of that life.

I do miss it. I miss waking up to text messages asking for coffee or lunch. I miss the smell of the Lee and the availability of everything; the city on one side, the school on the other, and I miss walking. I have already done the two hour drive to dear Chestertown and the automobile is no longer a thrill, but a depressant, alone in a cell cut off from the air and the people and the noise. It is a kind solitude, but it is no longer what I want.

And so when it comes down to it I miss Cork. Home has not changed a bit, I can tell. Rather, it is me who has changed, and I know this. I do enjoy the sun and the feel of warm air and bare feet. All the books I have to devour (most of which are dear gifts from Ireland) sit in a milkcrate in the corner of my room and I simply operate in a place between what has ended in May and what will begin in September, and even more what will end next May and what path I will be lead on then. Someplace new again, I hope. I think it will be time again for new faces, although I already miss the ones I have met.

I think I may always miss Ireland, that someplace old and someplace new.