the hydranchula goes to ireland: part 1

the hyranchula goes to ireland is a series of posts i'll be making during my j term study abroad in dublin, ireland. these posts will look a little different because they will have proper capitalization and pictures because professors like proper capitalization and pictures. please follow me on instagram to see what i'm drinking and eating up to every day.

It was this time last year when I decided I needed a change. I’d spent my first three months in Chicago feeling all the feelings. I was proud of myself for moving away from home; the city made me confident. I was happy making friends with people I really enjoyed being around and exploring the city. I did well in my classes, and I finally felt like I was where I was meant to be. For the first time in a long time, I fit.

But somewhere in between winter break and the Polar Vortex, something changed. I felt like I was stuck in that grey area of time between sunlight and moonlight. Somewhere in that dusk, I lost myself.

So I decided to run away… kind of. It’s a bit difficult to run away from a year-long lease on an apartment, a full-time job and a full-time school schedule, so I compromised my wanderlust for a J Term study abroad.

When I pictured myself in another country, I saw Ireland. Something about the place calls to me. As I kid, I read fiction books about Irish children.  I would sit in my bed until midnight, reading with a flashlight so my parents wouldn’t know I was awake. I liked to pretend that I was one of them, wearing white dresses made grey by the hardships of famines and dirt floors and playing with the pet cat my real parents would never let me have because I was allergic. But in my Irish dreams, I was not.

“I think I’m going to go in Ireland in January,” I said on a Tuesday morning, like I was asking to borrow a pen from someone.

“I’m going to study abroad in Ireland in January,” I told my parents that same night.

“We’re going to Ireland, and you should come!” We screamed in our reporting class to anyone that would listen.

So here I am, months, weeks and days later from the day I bought my ticket to Ireland. Sitting in the same bed I read all of those books in as a kid, so many years later. The bed has moved, and the décor is different. The bed is in an entirely new zip code, with new sheets and different pillows.

But I am the same, and I feel like I’m finally going home to a place I’ve only visited in my dreams.

A few of my (now) packed essentials for the trip: passport, camera, disposable camera, lipstick and wallet, a AAA guide from my mama, my personal journal and a pair of mittens.

i call bullshit

pinterest

there is this, in my opinion, irrational idea about “the one.” i used to really believe in the idea of finding one person that was made for me; one person that knew me before they even met me. but now, in the wake of my singleness, i’m calling bullshit on the whole thing.

love is a choice. it takes a lot of work, and it can suck for long periods of time. i look at the relationships i am surrounded by most, and while there is a lot of love and positivity and honestly and respect and compromise, i’m sure there is a heaping pile of shit, past and present, that stinks it up every once in a while.

how do you know you are in love with someone? or, better yet, how do you know that you are going to love someone every single day for the rest of your life? how do you know that you will be able to commit to them? to choose love, even when you don’t want to?

someone once told me to find a man that makes me laugh and is good in bed. she actually said, “find someone who will fuck you hard, because it matters.”

it’s not exactly poetic, but it has justified a few less-than-noteworthy one night stands for me. he wasn’t the one because he was terrible in bed. it was easier than admitting that i failed to connect with someone on any other level, let alone a primal one.

“he isn’t ‘the one.’” i’ve justified too many times to count. or, another favorite, “he’s not ‘mr. right,’ but he is ‘mr. right now.’” seriously, i’m gagging right now.

and what happens when you think you’ve found someone you want to spend a significant amount of time with, but they don’t want that from you? what then? do you ignore what your gut tells you? i mean, if it can identify bad sushi, it can surely tell you when to swing and when to walk away, right?

i interviewed a young married couple for an article i wrote in one of my classes last spring. what they said has really stuck with me. they don’t believe in soul mates either. in fact, they both made pretty good points as to why the ideal of soul mates is a heaping load. what happens if your soul mate lives in another country? or worse, what if they live in your neighborhood, but you never cross paths? imagine that you both frequent the same tea or coffee shop, but at different times of day. THIS PERSON IS YOUR SOULMATE, and you miss them by five minutes every day…

so you end up marrying the person behind the tea counter, because you see them every day and they make you laugh. they may not be your soul mate, but they have a nice smile and you like to talk to them. you marry them because you know them. they may not be your soul mate, but they are present. and you choose to love them, despite the fact that they are not your soul mate. do you know this? or do you regard them as such because you chose them?

do we ever really know?

i guess charlotte had it right when she swore off the idea of having romantic soul mates.

what you could

about this time last year, i started seeing a guy. he was the first guy i took interest in after the end of my nearly three year long relationship a few months before. he was older, quite smart, and funny. i felt comfortable around him immediately, like i had known him much longer and like we didn’t meet online.

our first date lasted hours longer than the others i’d been on. we drank whiskey and made jokes at my favorite bar. it was obvious that the night had to end when we both started holding in our yawns. he said he didn’t want to go, and i didn’t either.

outside, he insisted on walking me to my apartment. i insisted he not. i was a little embarrassed that i lived on campus, but i was more embarrassed that a group of eighteen year olds from my floor were smoking outside of the building. i didn’t want the doorman to see. i didn’t want my roommates to walk by on their way to the laundry room. a few kids in my classes lived in my building, and i didn’t want them to see. i didn’t want anyone to see me on a date. it felt invasive to the perfect little bubble we'd cultivated for the two of us in those few hours.

we fought back and forth about him walking me to the door, and we finally settled that he wouldn’t. i’d won.

i told him i wanted him to kiss me. i’d won that, too.

i saw him a few days later at a bar with some of my friends. i ordered pbr, and he did the same. i put my hand on his knee, and he put his hand on mine. he gave me butterflies.

on our second date, we went for dinner. he made me a drink and played music beforehand at his apartment, which i investigated thoroughly with apprehension. he didn’t have a table, but he had a plant and candles. i felt like i’d been staying the night there for months.

while i feel that all of this background information is necessary, it isn’t the focus of the story. the focus of the story is the music. the music he played when i came over that night and all of the nights after that.

he had a playlist of music he played when i came over. as a joke, and then a serious, we called it the “maggie’s coming over” playlist.

“play my playlist,” i’d say while i brushed my teeth or my hair in his bathroom. “play my favorite song,” i’d say, giving him two guesses to choose.

he’d make me tea, luke warm and barely steeped. we’d share clementines and kisses and lay on his living room rug listening to my playlist.

when we stopped seeing each other, i was devastated. i was still raw from my last breakup, and the sting of another failed relationship was difficult. i romanticized him and the short time we spent together until i drove myself completely insane.

our “maggie’s coming over” playlist became the repeated anthem of our breakup, if you could even call it a breakup.

last week i saw wet play live at schubas tavern. wet was all over the playlist. i’m not sure how he discovered them, or when he originally started playing them for me, but i loved them. i still love them.

it’s weird. last year at schubas i had a pretty enlightening experience about a guy i’d been sleeping with and the guy i wish i was still sleeping with instead. seeing lucy rose and crying in public was a religious experience for me.

seeing wet in person was another religious experience, totally and completely. it’s amazing how you can feel so many things from a past period of time, all at once.

i was immediately brought back to his apartment. i could distinctly remember what the inside of his freezer looked like, and the drawer that he threw all of his beer bottle caps into, and the smell of the hand soap in his bathroom. i could remember how it felt to wake up in the morning and feel his arms around me, exactly where they were when we fell asleep… like nothing had changed in the night.

and i remembered what it felt like to have him stop responding. i can hear the phone going to voicemail, always premature. i can see the blank screen on my phone as i check it every five minutes, hoping he would text me. i hear his voice, telling me he wasn't ready for something serious.

and i could see myself, covered in water, holding my breath in the bathtub, opening and closing my eyes through the water, wondering if there would be a day that i wouldn’t hate myself for loving someone who didn’t love me back.

“i believe that you did what you could, you gave what you could, and you loved how you could.”