Time Difference, Life Difference

It’s past midnight here, meaning it is dark, it’s getting chilly and I am alone in my single bed.

Out there, 10,414 kms away it is just past dawn. In my minds eye I can see the fishermen perched silently on a rock awaiting the pull on their old wooden fishing rods. I can see the old man, a westerner, with skin so brown it reminds me of my Dad’s old leather shoes. He is running steadily past me, he doens’t stop to rest he just keeps going. He reminds me of Forrest Gump and I want to talk to him, I want to hear his story. How long has he been here, why is he here and how does he run in this dead heat. I never did get to talk to him but I imagine he is stored in my memory banks now. A conversation I never had that I will regret not having the courage to start.

Every morning before they woke, I watched the sunrise. I had trained myself to get up and watch it. Some mornings it was cloudy, some mornings I sat on the swing and sang to myself, other mornings I just listened to the world around me waking up. There was one morning I cried, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was just seconds past 6am when the sun started her journey. She appeared small and bright on the horizon, slowly at first like a ballerina stretching her arms. Before I knew it, I was staring at a large fire ball. The most beautiful orange I had ever seen. The world as we know it isn’t always the way it is and sometimes we don’t even realise how fast time is passing us by. I knew that we would be home in a few days and that life would return to normal, but sitting there with my toes in the soft sand. I could feel myself getting angry that I had been wasting time. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life but I didn’t want to be anywhere but here and I didn’t want to think about anything from the past or anything from the future, I let my mind settle and I started to cry.

After some time I went back inside, it was just past 6am, it was getting warm and I was alone in a double bed.

Schull

Growing up, we had a caravan in Schull. I loved it down there so much, it is filled with so many good memories. We used to go down there all summer long. Veronica used to run some holiday homes down there and sometimes we would stay there too. I can’t think of one bad holiday down there, no matter what weather we had, or who was down there. I always had the best time. Today I wanted to do down, I haven’t been there is so long, maybe 7 years now, and so I did. I dragged Anna with me and we had such a good chat in the car, talking about sex and boys and what we were going to do this summer. I have only known Anna a short time but I feel like she has been around years.I accelerated more as we approached Mt Gabiel and I could feel my inner child getting exciting. We parked at the end of town and strolled up main street. Going in and out of chairty shops that smelled like my Nana’s and Grandad’s house. It’s the smell of must and old books. I wanted to stay in those shops and soak it all up.

We went wandering down Colla Road where the caravan park used to be, it is now filled with expensive houses that only american bankers could afford. I took Anna on a tour of  “The Moorings” holiday homes. I pointed out all the houses I had stayed in and recalled stories of family reunions, games of hide and seek and strange dinners that we ate. (I’ll save that story for another post!)

As we strolled through the houses laughing and joking, an elderly man in his 70′s waved to us from his conservatory. I smiled and waved and kept peering into the empty houses. He came out wearing slippers and a big wooly jumper (and a pants obviously). I couldn’t decide if he looked more like Morgan Freeman or a pint of Murphys but when he smiled, I liked him immediately. I told him how I used to spend my summers there as a child and how much it was one of my favourite places in the world. The wind carried my voice right throught he complex and he must have taken a shine to me beacuse before I knew it we were inside drinking tea, eating biscuits and talking about travelling, teaching and racism. It was like long ago, being inside with a check blanket, tea and biscuits and just chatting the day away. I learned all about his wife who passed away two years ago and listened as he recalled falling in love in the 60′s. Anna borrowed a book off him so we swapped numbers and promised to call during the summer.

It was so refreshing to meet a stranger so open to inviting strangers in for tea and a chat. I drove home high as a kite, I hope the summer is filled with  more days like this.

Mark Twain

I always like Mark Twain. He was wise. He said (There is no evidence he said it but I’m going to credit him with it anyway)

” Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

It made me think of Spain. I went to live in Spain back in 2005 and I lasted 8 days. Yes, I said EIGHT days! I don’t even know what I was doing getting on the plane in  the first place. I went to be an au-pair to a family in Madrid, I wanted to get away from Cork and everything that was here. It’s not that life was bad at the time but I was lonely, more lonely than I had ever felt before. It was the feeling of screaming in the middle of Patrick Street and knowing that no one would turn around, I felt invisible. I arrived into a stagnant heat, I can still remember what I was wearing and being surprised at how I felt. I wasn’t nervous at all. I was ready for this new adventure. The family seemed nice and the kids spoke english so I wasn’t totally in the deep end. After the first three days, I wondered what I was even doing there. They had a maid/cook and she came with me everywhere when I went to get the kids and that, she on the other hand spoke no english, it made our 4 hours a day together tiring. My cheeks hurt from smiling at her all day. All they ate was pasta, they didn’t eat dinner til 10.30pm and I felt like I had a food baby inside me every night. It was awful. By day four we were going to there summer house up North in Galitia. A six hour drive in the middle section of the back seat, in silence, was more toture than I could hande. Little did I know it was about to get worse. The non english speaking relatives came to visit and I was meant to play with the kids from 8am-10pm. They didn’t like me because I imagine they sensed I didn’t want to be there. For the next three days, I spoke to no one but the kids and every night they ate fish heads for dinner. Fish heads, eyes and all. This means every night I ate bread. Bread for breakfast, Brad for lunch and bread for dinner. It really did tickle the taste buds. Butter was a luxury since they didn’t have a fridge.We came back to Madrid after another 6 hour drive and I went to the kitchen and said I was going home. The kids kept eating, the Dad smiled at me and said he was sorry I hadn’t settled and the mother went beserk and I mean beserk. The husband had to take her out and calm her down, I used there house phone and called my friend ot book my flight home. Madrid~London~Waterford was the only option. I wanted to get the hell outta there by morning. I got up at 8am, packed my things and left. I never said goodbye. I just closed the door and got into the lift. I had to do an impression of an airplane flying to explain to the taxi driver where I was going. My time in Spain was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

My only regret was I didn’t just go to a hostel and get a job. I’d have learnt Spainish, made new friends and have had the adventure of a lifetime. Instead it was just another summer in Cork. I can’t remember anything from that summer, I should have stayed in Spain.

Men V’s God

I was going through my laptop earlier, trying to oragnise folders and rearrange some things. I came across photos and files I had saved away. It’s there so I can find it but it’s not screaming at me everytime I’m looking for something else . It’s titled old friends. What that title really means is ex boyfriends. I was feeling brave and decided to have a nose around. I’ve spent the last few hours reading and looking at photos from so long ago that it feels like someone elses life. There are mostly photos of Mustafa. I guess I must have bought my first digital camera around then and I knew how to upload photos from my mobile phone. It made me smile to remember all the fun things we did together, like going to gigs and staying in Galway and Dublin. The fact he couldnt leave Ireland made travelling difficult but we always had fun. As I started to read though old mails and MSN conversations,something dawned on me. Mustafa had a serious case of “I love you, now change”  Converting to Islam was mentioned more than once and why wasn’t I moving to Dublin to be with him was another one. Of course all these things remind me of Liam and why I wouldn’t be a Jehovah  Witness. Another boy suffering from the “I love you now change disease”. The funny thing is, I still talk to Mustafa, if I am ever in Dublin, we always meet for lunch and catch up. He always texts on my birthday and Christmas and always says I look great even though I may have just been dragged though a bush backwards. There is much more evidence in this laptop of Mustafa than Liam, I prefer it that way. Liam lives in a photo album and a box that I have hidden in my room. I rarely take him out and when I do I have to be alone and then I just let the tears flow. I still miss him, everyday. Isn’t that weird, or stupid or silly? I’m not sure, but at least it doesn’t hurt anymore. He has become a memory. A memory that is slowly fading but lives on in my choices of men. I have a terrible tendency to compare every guy I like to Liam. Does he make me laugh, Does he get on with my friends, Does he make me wanna burst out of my own body? Mustafa didn’t really make me feel any of these things and he appeared over a year after Liam and he lasted nearly a year. He was nothing like Liam but I wasn’t looking for Liam, I was looking for the anti~Liam. I’ve been single over two years now, mostly by choice and by lack of interest either way. It makes me wonder what exactly am I looking for. People used to joke that I wasn’t looking for the right man but I was looking for the right religion. I guess in a way that was true, I have always had faith but I’m not sure what it was that I believed in so I did go looking to find out if there was a way I could express that belief. It turns out there isn’t so I stopped looking.

I am starting to believe though that when the time is right, not only will I find someone to fall in love with again but I might even find God too.

Memories are made of these.

I love nights like last night. I drove home in the snow and it had such a Christmas feeling to it that I didn’t wanna be anywhere but here in Cork. When I got home Mom was asleep, sitting up, glasses perched on her nose and a book on her lap. The lamp was still on. Creeping around to her is always difficult because the floorboards creak, she always stirs when I take her glasses off her. I turn off the lamp and she usually mumbles a “Goodnight, Love you” It’s moments like this, I usually pause and look at her for a few minutes. While she sleeps soundly I think about how slowly our roles are changing. Once apoun a  time she put me to bed and sat with me, telling me stories about her childhood and how she met Dad before turning out my light and wishing me sweet dreams.  She is now always in bed before me and I tell her stories about what’s going on in my life and what big dreams I am dreaming, now I turn out her light and wish her sweet dreams.

At 6am I woke up to Dad calling me out of my slumber. Look out the window, it’s magical. Outside my frosty window was snow, the whole place was white. I was suddenly awake with the excitement of a child on Christmas day. We both went in and woke Mom up. We all stood at her bedroom window watching the snow fall and talking about how it felt like we were the only people awake in the whole city. It looked like a clip from a cheesy holiday postcard, but I didn’t care what it looked like, it felt great. It was one of those moments where you aren’t thinking about anything else but the present and I was happy.

After a while, we started to get sleepy. Mom got back into bed and Dad went down for some breakfast before heading back to bed after a nights work. I went back to bed and looked out my own bedroom window for a while, I looked through some old photos of when I was a kid and I knew that even though we were all doing our own thing most of the time, we were always going to be together. I have a feeling I’ll always have the memory of my Dad waking me up at 6am to look at the snow with my Mom. I’m pretty sure that it’s moments like this that the best memories are made of.

Being a doctor.

I am a doctor.

Well at least for a few years I thought I was, I have never been to college though and I was certainly not a born genius who happened to know alot about mediceine and diseases. I am adopted. When you’re 4 you think they mean doctor since you have never heard the word adopted before. I wonder what people thought I was talking about when I said I was a doctor.

Today is one of my calender days for thinking about that whole thing. It’s Mary’s Birthday. She turns 45 today. That would make her 21 when she had me. Life has changed dramtically for everyone in those 24 years, when you think back that condoms couldn’t even be bought here and you had to give away your baby because you would shame your family. The thing that makes me laugh about it all, and not laugh in a “I just heard a funny joke” kinda way is that Mary, even though in the body of a 45 year old, is still 21. She is still the girl who managed to get pregnant twice and had to give up both babies. Cleary she had never heard the term “Once bitten, twice shy”

I’m not sure if the whole thing makes me happy or sad. I am obviously happy for the wonderful family that I have, I do feel like one of the luckiest people in the world to have found my nest. While me and my Dad don’t always get along, it’s because we are so alike.We have the same taste in music, I listened to Dad’s records for about 10 years before I even knew what I radio was, we love the same stupid jokes that my Mom hates and we have the same temperment. My Mom on the other hand has become not only my favourite person in the world, but one of my very best friends. Growing up I was a Daddy’s girl but now I am a total Mom’s girl. I talk to her everynight, I climb into bed next to her and catch up on our day. She stays up til I get home if she knows I have been upset. We eat ice~cream in bed and talk about family, boys and books we have read. My brother, who I think the world is just 18 and I think over the last year we have become friends. He asks me for advice and tells me how he lied about his age in a club to get a girl but felt guitly so never went in for the kill. I love my family.

I am sad to think that it has all turned out this way. Mary living in Cobh with her husband and children and we couldn’t be further apart. It begs the age old question, nature over nurture? I believe it is nuture all the way. I am not sure what kind of person I would be today had I grow up in Moyross. I wouldn’t like to be sterotypical but I don’t imagine I would be the person I am today. I am basing that on Sarah my sister, a girl who is so rude and filled with anger. To think about her makes me want to vomit. I say that with good reason, I can’t even think about the past year without feeling a pit at the end of my stomach, a pit so low. it is nearly touching my knees.

I hate days like today where you are once again forced to put it into perspective. I don’t think many traits come from Mary, maybejust  the talkative one. I’d like to think I am more like my Mom. I believe I am more like her. I also don’t like to believe that adoption effects me in the way people assume it should. I think it makes me bad at letting go. It makes me bad at many things, I know its makes me not trust girls as fast as I trust boys and I think it makes me more aware of person I want to be, but more importantly the type of mother I want to be when I eventually have my own children.

Happy Birthday Mary. I hope I won’t have to think about you again until at least October.

Prized Possessions

I was reading a blog and it was all about the things that meant the most to him. I am not a huge fan of possessions since we came into the world with nothing and we will leave with nothing. This opinion clearly doesn’t mean I hate having nice things since I did bring a lamp all the way back from Ko Samui just because I fell in love with it.

Anyway, things I love are…

My car. Betty. She is red and covered in flower stickers. She has driven to Galway, Bantry, Ennis, Kilkenny and many other random places. She has taken many passengers, friends, family and even strangers. No one has ever puked in her, had sex in her or done anything illegal (That I know of anyway!)

I love my Nikon camera. I never use it though, it is one of many cameras that I have but this one was given to me by my uncle Connie, it is from way back in the 70′s it even has the little manual dateing back to 1975 still in the case. It’s so vintage and retro looking but I really just love it for what it embodies. The relationship between me and Connie and that there is nothing he wouldn’t give me to make me smile.

My watch because of who gave it to me. I have not taken it off in about 5 years (except when showering etc) I thought I lost it once and I freaked  my freak but thankfully found in inbetween the pages of a book on my window sill. I have never cried tears of relief before.

My letters.Over the years I had many penpals and I kept all the letter but I have a few letters in my bedside drawer from friends and family. Some filled with stories of holiday adventures and secret romances , some filled with sad news and dispair but mostly they are filled with love. When I am down or lonely, I take them all out and read them. I remember the person I am and the person I want to be and know that the people who wrote these letters love me just the way I am.

I have a teddybear who I sleep with. Yes, childish I know. His name is Harry. He is my comfort bear, he has been to Spain, Rome and NY. I bought him in Penny’s for 4 euro and he was the best 4 euro I ever spent.

Photos, anyone who knows me or who has been in my bedroom will see the obsession, so many photos, so many frames. Boxes and boxes of photos all over the place. I like having memories to look back on, even thogh not all memories make you smile.

My lava lamp. It’s such a trivial thing but I got it for my 13th birthday and at the time I know my Mom and Dad couldn’t afford to buy it for me but they got it anyway because I was obsessed with getting one. It meant so much more than all the cards and gifts I got that year and any other year.

Reading this blog back kinda shows that I’m kind of a setimentalist! Bears, Photos, Letters. I’m one cheesy pop song away from being in an episode of Dawson’s Creek.

Liam

There are people in my life who are gone now. People I miss very much. I am haunted by them in different ways, but whether we are seperated by death or merely distance, I carry a piece of them with them wherever I go.

Liam is one of those people.

My God, we couldn’t live without each other, one night apart was torture. You know, when you can’t sit two inches apart, you have to be touching, you can’t sleep on opposite sides of the bed, you have to be wrapped in each others arms. If you fight you can’t eat or sleep till it’s resolved. Liam appeared in my life April of 2003, He was always there, in the background but I had never seen him, of course I can remember our first proper chat and I can remember thinking, “He‘s the one”  He started to phone me because he wasn’t allowed to be friends with me, It wasn’t like I was a secret drug dealer or anything but Liam was a Jehovah Witness and therefore was not to associate with anyone outside of them. For some reason his unwavering faith made me like him more even though it should have made me sun screaming to the hills. Our first kiss was the way they are in the movies, fireworks sparked and I knew I wouldn’t be kissing anyone else for a very long time. From there on out we were inseparable.  In school we talked all the time and at home we’d talk online, it was hard for two of us because I was so used to be able to spend time with someone I liked but Liam wasn’t, we were breaking all his rules together. By the time summer came, you couldn’t keep us apart, my mother would drive us to school together and collect us, I’d walk him up home, then he’d walk me back home, this would go on for hours. To look back now, I can’t understand why we never just sat down to talk but back then our feet barely touched the ground when we were together. That summer Liam’s parents sent him to Wales to get away from the distractions in Cork! He rang every week and I would ring whenever I could, I would have to call his Aunts house and she used to laugh at me, knowing that I wasn’t meant to be calling at all. The summer of 2003 was long and the only thing that got me though it was making the school yearbook with Cian.  When Liam arrived back, I was waiting on him to call, a call that never came, I rang his house a few times and his Dad would always say he was out, I knew he was lying but what could I do? If he didn’t want to see me he didn’t want to see me, I was on the couch one Saturday, maybe a week after Liam had arrived home and I was having a bit of a weep about it all, and in arrives Liam, just standing in the doorway. I had a blubbery face and I was surrounded by tissues, I didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him, Of course all I could do was hug him. He was back and I was thrilled, he was only calling out of guilt though, saying he was sorry and it would never work.
A week later after calling me tipsy from Douglas he arrived up at the house full of the joys of life after a few beers, declaring he couldn’t live without me and would I be his girlfriend? Did I think about it? Think about the consequences? No, not at all, I loved him and whatever came our way, love would get us through. Sadly it didn’t.

Over a year went by and it was filled, filled with love, filled with screaming, tears and heartache. It all ended in a phone call, “I‘m sorry I can‘t do this anymore” What could I say? There was nothing left to say.
He is married now, to a girl who had pretended to be my friend.
I see them around sometimes, I never go over if she is there though, It still hurts. Funny how time can go by but your first love is and always will be your first love. The person you compare everyone else too and the person who sometimes creeps into your dreams, when you least expect them too. Seems time isn’t a healer after all.

2008

I feel like writing loads since I wanna talk about my weekend in London but I can’t be bothered to do it right now.

I was thinking about the year, 2008 that is and all the things that happened.

Norma left to travel the world

I went to Rome with 6 of my closest friends.(Got terribly sick, ended up in hospital and missed the end of the holiday but it was still one of the best holidays ever)

I threw a surprise party for my parents 30th Wedding Anniversary and scared the crap outta them, it was one of the best parties I was ever at, having all our family and closet friends there was amazing.

I fell out with one of my best friends and I’m not sure life will ever be the same again, it’ll be just as good but it’ll never be the same.

I made some new friends, all from PROC and I would be lost without a few of them.

Kitty died and I miss her.

I got on a plane and travelled all the way to Vietnam to see Norma.7 girls, 3 weeks and the best holiday of my life.

I watched one of my favourite people in the world, Daryl marry his soul mate Laura in France and I cried.

I got my nose pierced.

I discoeverd I have a thing for women who can pole dance (not in the cheap slutty way)

I kept a secret for a whole 8 weeks from my best guy friend. (It nearly killed me)

I started calling to Ronan’s for tea and chats and he is fast becoming one of my favourite people.

I was on a crazy high Christmas Day and I have never in my life, felt so contenteded and happy.

I also discovered, I find it hard to get offline.