*I am a sum of all that has touched me* Notes written before a departure from the warm breezes of the Caribbean to the chill and magic of Ireland.
I am a sincerely insecure person obsessed with securities. I read an infinite amount of information about self improvement and all of the things that I have to fit into my daily life. Daily life becomes more fraught and complicated while I become more delusional and blind to joy. I am driven mad by chaos and chaotic with trying to do it all. I am so worried about my children having the 'correct' childhood as described by the 'experts'.
My next glass of rosé will toast a departure from a country and anticipation of arrival in the next. I have lived in eight vastly different countries to date. My final exams in high school in Ireland suggested we write an essay about our thoughts on emigration. Let's be honest, when has the ebb and flow of the Irish ever stopped? I have always loved to travel. I grew up as the daughter of an airline pilot. This journey back to Ireland is a journey to a whole new land. In 25 years the soil is the same but the mindset of a generation is new. I left as a Peard and return as a Ritchie with an exotic husband and two children.
I have a suntan and a French dachshund. I am irrevocably changed and my Facebook friends are global. I look through my photos of Caribbean flowers to celebrate a life lived in colour. I have moved and changed and evolved and now I want to stand still and grow flowers of my own, surrounded by familiar faces and a sense that I don't have to weigh up the pros and cons of living in a far-flung destination anymore.
'I am...a part of all that I have touched and that has touched me' (Thomas Wolfe: Look Homeward, Angel. 1929).
