The Trip I imagined
When I imagined this American trip, I imagined myself blogging a hell of a lot more than I have done. I mean, what a writing opportunity. Travelling The United States. I imagined myself writing something in the vein of the documentary which inspired this trip in the first place; Stephen Fry in America.
That didn’t happen. But I would like to begin by saying that I am not disappointed with myself. I mean yeah, a part of me wishes I had, I’m not going to lie. If I wanted to, I could beat myself up about it. I’m choosing not to because I recognise the uniqueness of the situation I find myself in.
What is probably going to be one of the biggest things that’s ever going to happen to me(at least in a personal sense) JUST happened. I mean, it’s been less than 4 months. That’s the blink of an eye. Particularly when we’re talking about a context of four years. For those of you who haven’t been reading, my boyfriend (who I was pretty sure was going to be my husband one day) broke up with me. After four years. So I travelled America with him (as you do). See blog below for details.
Between the time we broke up and the time we left for America I focused all my energies on myself, and on having a good time. I figured I needed to do the first part purely and simply for the good of my mental health; and the second because I figured regardless of how good I felt (and I did, surprisingly so) it was always going to take time. And in that time I wasn’t going to sit around and mope- I was going to go out and make the most of it (once again see below).
I guess in my head America would be different. I’d go straight into tourist/journalist mode and see and experience everything possible; recording and analysing every minute of it as I went. Once again, great and all as that would’ve been, it wasn’t very realistic. Sure, if Rudi and I were still together and nothing had ever happened I’m pretty sure that would’ve been my trip. There would’ve been ten times more photos and ten times more updates. But what my trip actually became was what I needed. This trip was in large part down to wonderful people I met as a result of one fateful night in Stockholm. The section below details this, but do feel free to skip onto the next one!
When Brendan (and Mercedes) met Trudi (Triona and Rudi)
Let’s rewind. 7 months ago (I know what you’re thinking, where on earth is she going with this, but hold tight) I was staying in a hostel in Stockholm with members of DCU Fotosoc. One night, Rudi, Rowan (a friend we made on the trip) and I knocked on a door to the common room, which was then answered by an american who said ‘sure, I’ll let you in if you lend me a pen’. So we did. In the meantime Rudi, Rowan and I got into a huge conversation all about relationships. Brendan the american reappeared with our pen so we asked what he had been writing about. It was none other than an article all about his most recent break up. We welcomed Brendan (who it turned out was also a media student) into our conversation with open arms and had a great night, talking about everything from politics to relationships to music. What a fateful night. Oh and there were some drunken austrians and angry shouting balding men in there somewhere too but that’s a story for another blog. So toward the end of the night Brendan mentions he’ll be in Ireland for Paddy’s Day. Naturally I say ‘add me on Facebook!! We’ll meet up!’. Which he did. And we did. So Brendan and his friend Mercedes come out to me and Rudi’s apartment and we have yet another great night of chats involving pizza and some movie starring Matt Dillon as a psychopathic killer in Philadelphia, which is, coincidentally enough, where Brendan’s from. Toward the end of this night I notice Brendan and Mercedes looking tired so I say ‘hey Ru we should probably drop these guys home, do you guys have an early flight in the morning?’ to which they say ‘oh no we’re getting the train to London’……… Yup. A train to London. We have Irish Rail’s slightly misleading site to blame for this. So Rudi and I spend the next two hours finding the cheapest possible way to get these guys back to Holland, where they’re studying for a semester. Eventually we find a way and drop them to their hostel. ‘THANK you guys SOOOOO much!! Oh my god you’re LIFESAVERS!! If you’re EVER in Boston and need accommodation just let us know!!!!’ to which we think ‘yeah, when are we ever gonna be in Boston!’ and laugh to ourselves thinking of it as a good deed done and nothing more. Laugh we did again a mere few weeks later upon the discovery that number 1: we’d gotten a job in the states, based in Boston and number 2: we needed to stay in Boston for two weeks before starting our job due to J1 Visa restrictions. So we sent Brendan and Mercedes a very tentative email along the lines of ‘any way we could stay with you a little while?’ thinking something like a few days to a week. To which we received a reply from Mercedes stating she had a futon we were welcome to for as long as we wanted, and instructed us to merely let her know when we’d be arriving. Heartwarming or what. And that was just the beginning.
Home in America
That first night we arrived in Boston Mercedes met us in Boston City, gave us passes to a whole bunch of attractions and found us a lift to her apartment with a friend of hers, Nato (whose home in Connecticut we recently spent a weekend at, more later). Upon our arrival at her apartment, we met her flatmate, Sam and their friends Brian and Rob. These people are some of the nicest people I have ever met and may never know how much their friendship meant to me at the time.
I am a very strong person. I have gone through some very hard times in my life. I’m not saying I’m any less well off than anyone else. In so many ways I have been blessed; beginning and ending with the unending source of love that is my family (once again, for another blog) but I have also gone through some tough times, on more than one occasion. It’s only as a result of all this that I am strong, and independent- I had to be. But when the man I thought my entire future was with ended our relationship, pretty much out of the blue, my world crashed around me. I know I stayed strong, I know I stayed much more positive than most people expected, but Rudi and I got together when I was 18. When I was just becoming the adult I am today. He was my boyfriend and best friend throughout my entire degree. The foundations of who I am, or at least who I considered myself to be, and where my life was going, were shaken. After the experiences I’ve had in the past, at the risk of sounding negative or morbid (neither of which I am) I’ve come to truly understand the statement that the only thing we’re assured of in life is death. The fact that Rudi would always be by my side, whatever shape my life took, eventually came to be one of the only things I considered even close to that. All those times that expectations and reality didn’t match up; that people let me down or even disappeared from my life completely; the thought of having a constant (yes, Lost reference for those who have watched the show) became more and more of a comfort. And then just one day, on a bus to Carlow, all that changed.
I’ve never found friendship to come easy to me. I’ve always found it relatively difficult to find people I click with, at least in any deep or meaningful way. Sometimes even in a basic way. And yet in Boston I found myself in a whole group of people just like that. For that reason I’ve never found myself to be much of a group person. Aside from the odd exception I generally find my closest friends are odd, random people from different circles; never one tight knit group. And yet here I found myself, comfortably slotting into a circle. One group of people who barely knew me, had no vested interest or reason to be particularly nice, and yet were. People that went out of their way to show interest, ensure I felt at home, had a good time and made the most of my time in the states.
What I like about U.(S.A)
When Rudi and I broke up, this whole trip was thrown into question. Many around me advised against going. Really, it could’ve gone either way. But I put one of the biggest lessons I have learned in the last year to use and trusted my gut instinct. And thank god I did because coming here was one of the best decisions I ever made. It may sound funny to describe travelling with your recent ex as a fresh start, but it really, really was. Getting out of Ireland was exactly what I needed. Don’t get me wrong, for the first while after the break up, I needed my friends big time, and boy did they come through. But after that, fresh experience, something and somewhere completely different was what I really needed. I think before I could even articulate it, I have never felt like I fit in Ireland. Something never quite felt right. I am still young, I still have much to learn and if watching older people has taught me anything it is that people are generally like boomerangs and generally tend to come back around. So in all likeliness I will probably come to find myself settled in Ireland in years to come and eating these words. But there are certain aspects of Irish culture that just do not mix with my personality. I am not going to get into every single one of them right now as it would take forever and probably come off sounding bitter. But I am an extremely open (just in case you haven’t noticed), honest individual who doesn’t delight in gossip, doesn’t find comfort in knowing everyone around her, delights more in coffee culture than alcoholic pursuits and who will always choose optimism over pessimism. These things I find, just clash with the general Irish population. And for me that is the most important aspect of where I find myself. Not weather, not how much money I earn or how ‘successful’ I am, not familiarity, not where’s convenient; culture, people.
Here in America (and this, of course, could change drastically if I lived here for an actual period of time) I do not feel that way. I do not feel like an outsider. I do not constantly feel like me and the people around me are on completely different wavelengths. And that was exactly what I needed to feel after the person I considered most on my wavelength severed a tie. I stress the singularity of that tie, because as I was about to discuss in my next point, although we are no longer in a relationship, he is still my best friend. To conclude my point about how funny a fresh start with your recent ex sounds; the reason having Rudi here has had little to no effect on the fresh experience that was this trip is that, in case you haven’t read the blog all about it, our relationship ended very lovingly; funny as that sounds. It was a mutually reached decision for the benefit of both of us. We dismantled our relationship together, supported each other at every turn and have been supporting each other ever since. This extends to my American experience, as well as his. I have discussed every single thing I’ve mentioned here with him, and at every turn he could; he has tried his best to make this the best experience it could be for me- he even pretty much acted as my wing man on one occasion. I am not going to lie- We’re not some weird super ex couple. Spending pretty much 24/7 together (particularly in the travelling part of the trip) has not always been easy. There have been times we’ve been more on the couple side of the boundary than the friendship one. Times we’ve just wanted to be together again. Times we’ve wanted to be apart. Times we didn’t know what we wanted. I could go on, but my point is both that these times were in the severe minority and all that makes us different is how we dealt with it. We dealt with it in the way we’ve always dealt with everything: as a team and with the utmost consideration and respect for each other.
To conclude, although this trip has been a cultural experience (one which I will write more about later) more than anything it has been a personal journey. One I am very glad to have taken.
