It is bizzare to realize that my time in Ireland has come to an end. It doesn't feel real yet because just as I am packing my things up to leave, I am also getting ready for another three weeks of adventuring, country hopping and general mayhem. It doesn't help that the current state of my apartment in no way suggests that tomorrow I will be heading off to Dublin and then on to Europe. In fact, it just looks kind of like I just got here and then promptly took half of my things out and threw them around in a frenzy (which if you know me is exactly what I do the moment I arrive anywhere). It could be January again and I could be cold and wet and excited for all of the new things about to begin.
However, it is not January (although it is still cold and wet) and I am now faced not only with the task of somehow moving completely out of my apartment by midday, but also of looking back over everything that has happened this past semester and all the things I have done and attempt to gather some kind of profundity from it all. Because that was why I studied abroad, wasn't it? So that I could discover myself and then blog about all the deep emotions I was having? I am pretty sure that was what I set out to do that first day when I pretentiously sat in the Amsterdam airport during my layover, writing in my leather journal as the Lord of the Rings soundtrack played overhead, and I suppose I didn't do so terribly after all.
So what exactly did I learn whilst studying abroad? I could wax for hours about Irish literature and music and art and culture and how to properly pull a Guinness and how to make a good Irish cup of tea and why you should never try to outdrink an Irishman and the entire political mess that concerns the "upper six counties" as they say. However, in the end all this played second fiddle (that could maybe be a trad music joke) to what I learned about friendship.
If you believe in fate, then that's what it was, but if you have gotten a little skeptical recently as I have, then it was just a happy accident that I ended up surrounded by the most wonderful people the world could offer. I find it so funny looking back to the weeks leading up to moving to Galway, in which I was looking for housing, researching classes and societies, and listening to Irish bands, all with the deliberate attempt to put myself as far from other Americans as possible. I found an apartment outside of the student housing that most of the other study abroad students were using because I wanted to be sure that I was living with Irish students and truly experiencing the culture as thoroughly as possible. While I am exceedingly grateful that I did this because it did allow me the chance to meet some wonderful Irish people (and gave me people to ask all my silly "how do you do this thing in your country" questions to), my effort to avoid Americans failed spectacularly with one facebook message (for the record it was Liz asking to walk to orientation with me - thanks girl), and I wouldn't have it any other way.
There was a comfort in having friends that were all going through the same wild discovery process that I was. I didn't have to pretend that I wasn't beyond excited every time I saw a sheep (which as you can imagine was pretty frequently) because they were too. If I wanted to take a bus to some random little town and hike along the freeway for a while, I always had a companion. If I wanted to try out every coffee shop in town because, well, culture, there was always a willing participant. We were bonded together by adventure and discovery and cultural differences and we always had each other to lean on when the going got tough.
I learned a lot this semester about loving other people and allowing them to love you as well. I learned about trusting people to still love you even when you are the most chronically late person on the planet. I learned about sometimes letting people just hold you when you cry, and that it is even ok just to cry sometimes in the first place. I learned to listen when someone told me that I was great because I trusted them so completely that they couldn't possibly be lying. If you read my blog, you know that I have gone through things this semester that I don't think any 21 year old should ever have to endure, but if you asked me how my semester was I would not hesitate to tell me that it was one of the best of my life. This isn't because the losses I experienced weren't terrible, but because in the face of these tragic times I was met with some of the most incredible support and love I have ever experienced.
The universe takes and it gives. I'm still pretty angry about the people that have been taken from me, but the blow is softened immensely by what I have been given. I don't know when we will all be together again in the same room, let alone in the city of Galway, butI have every confidence that this is only ta ta for now. I look forward to our return - even if it is when we are in our forties, dragging our families along and too old to stay out and drink until 2, because I know that part of us will always stay with each other as the crazy, slothlike 20-year-olds we are right now.
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