Making Fists

Revised Eight Months

Deanepay sent me a message that made me rethink about the last eight months of my life all over again.

In the past eight months, I have:

Worked as a roadie (during which I was given a hard time by Damien Rice’s drummer), got to climb around backstage in some of the oldest theaters in Ireland, meet what felt like half the population of Cork on a fool’s errand, (excluding my time as a roadie) I managed to get offers for not one, not two, but three different jobs (in this bloody economy, even), traveled to Paris by myself, hung out with an olympic soccer coach, kissed five Irish men, befriended a fellow American traveller who constantly pushes me to be a move adventurous person, drank with Trinity grad students in the pub on Trinity’s grounds, witnessed St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, got to see the fucking Cutty Sark and the HMS Victory, walked the Tower Bridge, stood at Platform 9 3/4, travelled from Wales to Ireland by ferry, found my own housing (I still consider this a feat), spent Christmas with an Irish family I barely knew, lived in a hostel for a month, saw Dara O’Briain live, climbed the Eiffel Tower twice (once during a snowstorm!!), got a tour of an Irish castle, cultivated some fucking amazing friendships on Tumblr, and not once, not even when I was too depressed to go outside, did I hurt myself. 

So, you know, things might not be perfect and I was knocked back on my ass for a while there, but I guess it’s just how you frame it. Or, how I frame it. Cause not only did I do all this, I did it with depression and anxiety, and that made it really fucking hard at times, but still. 

There’s a long way to go and a lot more I want to see and do, and I have to be honest - the sudden influx of tourists into Dublin is kind of souring my mood a little, but I’m starting to feel like my life is mine to control again.

There were a lot of days I spent holed up in my room in Dublin, but, there were also a lot of days I was out trying to have an adventure. 

/update from Dublin

…those days when you want to apologize to everyone you’ve ever met for being yourself. 

Never underestimate the importance of having a queer person who is older than you to talk to. 

Apparently, the word “asshat” has not made it’s way to Ireland yet. 

I taught it to my boss today.

/update from Dublin

Eight Months

I walk to work every morning day dreaming about cars and those places we used to climb out to in the desert, out past the city. 

When the sky was so brilliant, blue above us, above me, stretching into outlines of eternity, ideas of infinity locked up in our veins.

Being sixteen with a cavalier is a lot more freedom then being twenty-three with a good pair of sneakers in a foreign country. 

At least, it is when you probably have an untreated anxiety disorder.

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My new goal is to get a coworker who is fluent in Irish to teach me a cuss word in Irish.

/update from Dublin

Sorry if I ruined it for you? D^:

Naw, it’s cool. You didn’t.

I’m not going to stop liking Meat Loaf (I always knew he was problematic), but I also know he’s kind of really hit or miss in his live performances. 

And then I saw the video of him at the rally for Romney and he was embarrassing himself. Really. Have you seen it? The other performers (I’m not sure who they are) are actively trying to not laugh at him. I actually feel bad for everyone involved. 

I also really can’t afford it. I’d have to put it on my credit card and I just don’t want to do that.

If anything, you helped me make a better financial choice. 

I want to go surfing in Galway next month, so I’ll just cut my loses. 

Thanks. 

Sometimes my house make noises that sound just like the noises of my house back in the states - 

My roommate kicking around in the kitchen. An alarm clock going off.

I’ll roll over in the morning and reach for a bedside table that is seven thousand miles away and remember, again, that I’m in Ireland.

It hits me at weird times. Walking to work, buying dinner, getting on the tram - 

I did it. I fucking up and moved to Dublin. 

It’s hard to explain. I’ve been here so long that this crazy, twisted part of me feels like I’ve always been here, and then there is this other - equally crazy, twisted part - that feels like it just got off the plane this morning. 

It’s hard to quantify and describe. How I feel like I’ve always been this alone even though I know I haven’t. How Dublin slowly crept into my skin like she was always here, waiting.

Sometimes I get it. In this deep, profound, wordless way. Watching the sunset over the Liffey and I can feel it in my fucking bones, how Irish I am. How I know my ancestors came from this land.

Other times, it’s pressed harshly into my face. That this will never be mine. I have no claim to this place, these people, this land. It doesn’t matter what blood courses through my veins, I have always and will always be an American. 

I want to quantify it, desperately. But it’s always just out of grasp. What it feels like to be here, really be here, with all my anxiety and depression in tow and I’m trying. But, I don’t always succeed.

/update from Dublin

I was not expecting Meat Loaf.

Nobody expects Meat Loaf.

But… gahhhhhhh……

It’s Meat Loaf.

Guys.  People. (with all this feminism under my belt, I still call people “guys.”)

I’m a huge Meat Loaf fan.

I got “Bat Out of Hell” for my 8th birthday. It was my first album, basically, ever.

He’s playing Dublin tomorrow.

It’s supposed to be the last time he does “Bat Out of Hell” in it’s entirety.

Tickets are 85 euros.

What do I do………..?

/update from Dublin

My favorite artist will be in Dublin tomorrow and I’m still toying around the idea of buying an overpriced ticket with money I don’t have.

I’ve never seen him live. The first album I ever got was one of his.

I probably won’t, but the temptation is really strong.

gah.

/update from Dublin

Living with strangers means everyday is a new adventure in:

-What the hell is that smell
-What the hell is that noise
-Why did you abscond off with all the kitchen towels?
-What the hell is that stain

Living with nocturnal strangers means you get to have these adventures at odd hours.

There’s nothing like waking up from a nightmare going, “What the fuck is he doing to make that sound in the next room?”

Also, I think I might have to actually go tell an adult that, in order for a dish to be clean, you must use hot water and soap. 

/update from Dublin

I feel like people look for my queerdom. 

Like, they can’t just leave me the fuck alone. I have to prove I’m queer regularly or they are going to come take away my queer card. 

I’m sort of seeing a guy now. He’s great, funny, into the same music I am. I’m enjoying hanging out with him, which is what is important to me. Right?

I was drunk with a friend on skype the other night (we have drunk skype dates. it’s fun), and we talked about him for a while, and she said I don’t sound really excited to be with him, or something along those lines.

We’ve been on three dates. I don’t know him well enough to be jumping for joy over him. I like him, yes. We get along, yes. I find him attractive. It’s going well, but it’s not a huge, emotional thing yet.

Later on, I mentioned there is a lady at work I find cute (I haven’t even spoken to her. I don’t even know her name) and my friend went, 

“Yes, I knew it, I knew there was a woman.”

And literally punched the air. Like, oh, that’s it. I find this lady cute which is clearly the reason I am not a smitten-kitten over the guy I’m seeing.

It felt just like when someone sat me down and tried to tell me I was a lesbian when I was a teenager.

I’m queer. I’m attracted to people. I don’t see how me happening to find a woman cute while I’m seeing a guy is any different then a straight woman finding a guy cute while she’s seeing another guy.

You don’t have to look for it, I don’t have to prove my queerdom by mentioning attractive people of the same sex, it’s not going anywhere. I’ve been queer my whole life, it’s not going to vanish into thin air just because I started seeing a guy. 

Also, it makes me feel like they don’t take my feelings towards the opposite sex seriously. Or that I don’t take my own queer-idenitity seriously. 

Because, I do, and they have no right to judge my emotions towards other people.

It’s complicated. I contain multitudes. Emotions are complicated. Relationships are complicated and I’m so sick and fucking tried of people trying to shove me into a binary. 

In September, my mother and I are going to go visit the town my family is from, in Ireland. The town my great-great-grandmother left in 1901.

It has a population of 280.