saudade

Time flies. It's almost been 3 months since I said goodbye see ya later to you and there hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought about it since. I still sometimes go check the flights, I still check the stupid snapchat map and browse the streets, I look at the photos hung on my wall every single day wishing I got at least a few more days, weeks, months, years. I don’t think I've ever felt like this before. I know heartbreak, I know what it feels like to feel helpless, I've been so sad that I didn't even know if I'm physically capable of feeling happy ever again. And this is the most delicate mix of all these, specifically blended just for me and this reality I'm living now. This is my story, nobody else's, and I love it and hate it at the same time. 

In fact, I loved and hated you too, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It was not all sunshine and unicorns, it was literally pissing rain most of the time, but the rainbows and rare glimpses of the sun were so worth it. every. damn. time. Yes, there were times when I wanted to pack my bags and never see you again... now I wish I could see you anytime I feel the need to escape this place. Which is more often than you think.

“Next time I’ll see you I’ll ask what’s the craic” that was about 4 months in, I’d say I was still a tourist then, knowing my way around the town but not to people’s brains. Using craic in a sentence felt funny and I was yet about to have it.

“Tell me this isn’t the best craic you ever had” fast forward 26 months, I was getting off the bolt bike in front of our apartment, in the middle of the month I cried the most in the last 2 years. Best month ever. Still giggled a little when he said the word in his silly donegalian accent, but if this wasn’t the best craic I've ever had, I don’t know what else was. Two weeks later, the 4 of us were hugging each other over and over again at the bus station, red eyes and all, and even though we spent the majority of the last week together, at work and outside work, with and without clothes on, it still wasn't enough. I cried for 2 hours straight on the bus, already knowing that this would be the moment I would tell my kids about a few years from now, still unable to hold back the tears.

Damn. How lucky was I? To even be able to spend my most vulnerable years with you. I became the person I am today because of you. You changed me. You taught me so much. I met all of them because of you. And I'll be forever thankful for that.

I love you. I miss you. You are a part of me forever. In my mind and in my skin. Until we meet again, Éire.