Ireland- November 2021 (3)

The Green Line Flight

    Safe landing, and then… the darkness of the early morning sky seeped into my psyche and began to eat away at my joy of having arrived as we taxied down the runway. Doubt crept in and started whispering its incessant reasons why none of this was going to work out. And reminded me, as I realized nothing in Ireland opens until after 8:30, that I had already screwed up by booking the earlier flight when I knew I should’ve booked the later flight. It was just after 5 a.m. and the later flight would’ve put us there at 9:30 a.m. What were we going to do for two to three hours while we waited for the country to wake up? Here we were, barely begun, and I have already failed. I’ve let down my kids, who I had to leave to do this silly trip, I let down my family, and I’ve let down my brother, who is trusting me to have everything all figured out. I was deeply afraid of failing and it had me seized at the throat. I practiced taking deep breaths and flowed with the collection of other tired travelers through immigration and to the baggage claim, oscillating between this fear and the joy of being in Ireland that thankfully refused to leave me no matter how provoked the fear became.

    As I continued to breathe through the presence of this negative self-talk and fear, I thought about the process that brought me to this place, to see what I could learn. There was obviously a lesson here for me. That’s what I try to see moments when I am highly self-critical of myself as. Lessons for me to discern what it is in myself that is asking to be paid attention to and given love. Granted, much of the love-giving is done in retrospect, as the self-criticism in the moment can often be too overpowering to allow for much during that moment. While I was booking the flight for this trip back in the summer, when it seemed like a great idea to begin travel plans again, I asked my brother about what time he thought would be good to book the flight. He told me that daylight traveling is good, which is great advice and still informs much of the rest of my planning. He was also very quick to point out that I was the one who would be more qualified to pick the flight time, and it made no difference to him. Yet for some reason, I told myself that he was probably right, and I should trust that, not what I was feeling was right at the time. Flying in on the 9:30 am flight would have let me sleep on the plane, and then arrive after everything is up and functioning. I knew all of this within me but couldn’t call it to my thinking mind when I was making the decision. It did its best to inform me, by creating the feeling within me that booking the later flight would be good. But I blocked it, or ignored it, or distrusted it, and here we were.

    After we collected our baggage, just another thorn my negative self-talk could twist into my side, we walked to the car rental place, and the first sign of relief came through the agent there, called Anne. She helped shift my mood by being kind to me. She helped us sort the added insurance I thought was included in what I had already paid (another screw up on my part), and shared part of her life with me. Her story was inspiring and lifted my spirits. I left the counter smiling and feeling thankful she was put onto my path. It reminded me that the biggest part of this lesson I was once again in the process of learning is trust. Trusting the process. Trusting the journey. Trusting the decisions of the past are the ones that were meant to be made to create the opportunities and experiences of today for our biggest and highest growth. And we can see this if we are willing to stop and take a moment to reflect, and allow. Even if, upon retrospect, we can recognize the moments in time when a different decision would have maybe made things seemingly easier, there is still purpose and reason that those decisions were made the way they were. And we can trust in that if we choose. This journey is about remembering to choose trust.

    That dark Dublin morning, as we loaded our things into the little white Hyundai that was to be our transport for the next 10 days, I kept breathing. I kept remembering my process. I kept remembering to choose trust. And I drove us down to Bray, because it felt like the right thing to do. I drove us right to the place I first drove my children in 2015, because I was learning, at a different level, the same lesson I was learning back then. That along with the fear, with the negative self-talk, with the self-criticism, there still exists the inner voice of self-love, of compassion, of trust. And as they grow, the fear slinks away, to stay away longer and longer each time, coming back with less and less intensity. And able to be dispelled by a simple kind interaction.

 

Sunrise on Bray beach, with the moon

    I walked down to the beach, relishing in the sounds of the rounded stones beneath my feet. Nowhere sounds like Bray beach. My footfalls became an even, meditative beat, matching the ebb and flow of the waves giving good morning kisses to the beach as the sun slowly made its ascent, infusing the world with gentle shades of color. The moon, a slivered, waning crescent, sat in the sky, welcoming me as it had back in 2015. I could feel the land from this empty early-morning beach, and I knew I was where I was meant to be.