I haven’t really been homesick since getting to Vancouver. Today, though – today is St. Patrick’s Day, when everyone pretends to be Irish. The actual Irish don’t much notice, apart from having another excuse to have a party, really. It’s a kitschy, stupid holiday that I never really thought much of. It came as something of a surprise, then, when I was chatting to a friend and suddenly got… okay, emotional. I cried a bit.
I watched this video of my home town. It’s just a flash mob thing. That’s the main street there. I know it doesn’t look like much but that’s what passes for an Irish city. They’re tiny in comparison to a place like Vancouver.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utdKjUZz-o0]
It’s never hurt this much before. I haven’t really been all that homesick up to this point. But I watch this, and see the streets of my home, and suddenly it hits me like a knife that I am very far away from them.
Far from the laughter of my friends.
Far from the blood of my kin.
Far from the graves of my ancestors.
Far from the land that shaped me.
It was easy to leave Ireland. I know my reasons were sound. And I told myself that I could do what every Irish emigrant has done, and carry it with me, but sometimes it isn’t enough. I’m on the other side of the world, and it still calls to me. It hurts that I can’t answer.
It’s taken over a year, and now I understand the old songs; the way they felt the need to sing so much about the home they gave up. Now I know how they felt when they sang them.