We are in Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, Ireland. For some it would be the trip of a lifetime, but since we come here a couple of times a year, the trip doesn’t have that same sense of the unknown. Don’t get me wrong, we love it here. We meet with our friends and relations. It is comfortable and we know what to expect.
Today we are heading off to spend a long weekend somewhere we have never been before. If it was just Arden and me, it would be totally exciting, but the thought of taking Nick somewhere that we have never been is terrifying. All of the “what ifs” began rolling around in my head. As humans, when we have experienced traumatic events, we often try to plan out what our course of action would be if the worst case scenario happened. Yesterday when that started up, I began feeling a bit overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go, so I took a deep breath and dismissed those thoughts from my head by distracting myself with a Hallmark movie. You know the type. Every bad thing in the characters’ lives is resolved in two hours. They are unrealistic but comforting.
So why are we going you might ask. We have been invited by dear friends to get to know their area of Ireland. Their holiday home is as far south as ours is to the north. We do want to do something new and have new experiences. Even the 6 1/2 hour drive through the wind and rain on Irish roads will not deter us. I know that if I only did those things with which I was comfortable, I would have missed many of my fondest memories. I recognize that the experiences in my life that are memorable are often not the same ones that were comfortable.
So with this understanding and resolve to forge ahead, I am up early and working on packing up the car. We still have another few minutes before we wake Nick and then the real work begins. This morning I do feel excitement and anticipation mixed with a little bit of trepidation. It seems to be a good balance.
So as the Irish say, “It’ll be grand on the day.” I am trying to embrace that philosophy.
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