Perks on Earth

I guess this is the part no one tells you about. None of the travel blogs I’ve read in the long run up to this trip have mentioned the heartbreak of saying goodbye. Maybe for some, the goodbyes aren’t as emotional as mine have been- but as I sit on a train embarking on the first leg of my journey, I find myself mourning all I’ve just waved goodbye to. This has always been a challenge for me, because as much as I love and crave travel, above all else I am a home body, my family and home in rural Ireland are such enormous elements of what make me me. And on saying goodbye, I am feeling a strange sense of my roots to Ireland that I have not experienced before. Saying goodbye to green landscapes, friendly faces, and familiar roads fills me with a joyous sadness- I feel to be sad about a departure reflects the great fortune I have had in growing up in such an amazing country, surrounded by even more amazing people.

My parents, who have long been my biggest supporters, are also my greatest inspiration. Their own stories of travel and life on foreign shores are what have fostered the curiosity for travel within me, and their support for my choices to chase this curiosity has been unwavering. But just now, waving goodbye to my mother as I board the train, I feel an odd sense of apprehension, to leave behind what is known, comfortable, and secure, for what is unknown and, in a sense, a little scary. But this unknown is what excites me deep down, what has always driven me to want to leave my Irish home and see what the world has to offer. This next chapter is so full of the unknown, and therefor so full of opportunity and adventure- which is what my very being is chasing. Goodbyes are inevitable, but I guess I hadn’t placed much thought into the act of saying goodbye until these last days, accumulating into hugging my amazing mother and bidding her adieu.

I think the sadness of saying goodbye as a home body is a reminder- that it is not goodbye, but see you later; the reunion will be all the more beautiful for it.