From Nowhere

Stepping off the plane in Dublin airport, I was hit by a sense of coming home. The smell of the floor cleaner - a common one in Ireland - overwhelmed my nose and brought back memories of my time living on the Emerald Isle.

As I waited for the bus to take me to the hotel, I noticed how the air felt lighter than in my current home, the Netherlands. It’s more wild, spacious, and free. I was greeted by a closeup of a raven - a true raven, sometimes hard to distinguish from a large crow - but distinctive by its larger beak and fluffier neck. It curiously gazed at me, and I smiled. The ping ping ping of starlings, less common in the Netherlands, further took me back to my time in Ireland, and I joyously watched a starling weave through the air like an acrobat to snatch a bug, its iridescent coat shifting colors in the partially cloudy day.

Hello, Ireland. My third home.

***

Entering Ireland, I felt myself falling gently into another self like a warm winter coat - one that never truly left me but was, perhaps, in a parentheses, on pause.

It’s comfortable, but disorienting.

Ireland is an interesting balance of life and decay - exploding green and the rot of seaweed, collapsing infrastructure in need of updates and the pulse of humanity through its rich culture, art, and music. This was embodied for me in a decrepit passing hotel bus, its bumper falling off under the sign “Enjoy a good’s nice rest,” as it somehow managed to putter along through the crisp air and the singing of the starlings.

Similarly, my time here was of incredible decay, remolding, and explosive growth. I gave some of my best years in my 20s to Ireland. I made cherished friends and learned valuable life lessons. I survived living far from home, a pandemic, a doctorate, and a long-distance relationship.

That never truly leaves you. You are connected, in some way, to the soul of the place, which remembers the energy you gave there.

***

The next day, I traveled to the city I used to live in - Galway, a 2.5 hour bus ride to the Western coast of Ireland. I had mixed feelings entering Galway - the land reflected back to me the success, sorrows, and frustrations of my four years spent there. Then, I was blessed by a gorgeous rainbow bursting over my hotel, the rain clearing, sun shining. Welcoming me and honoring the energy I had spent there.

I saw my Ireland friends the next day for my bachelorette party. It was a slower, gentler pace than the usual Irish “hen” party. I wanted to reconnect to them as I reconnected to the land.

Nearing the end of out time together, sipping a warm Irish whiskey, I looked around, remembering the time I first met each of these wonderful people and the community we created to support each other through pandemics and PhDs. Time had changed us. New homes, changing jobs, gray in hair, a few more lines on faces from lives lived. And I had changed, too. I was less the activist and rabble rouser of my PhD days and more calm, settled, wiser, choosing my battles. And now, I was getting married.

I felt a tinge of pain for the times that were now lost, eventually transformed into a gratefulness for what is. That their love had continued for me even though I had left Galway and changed, and that they still chose to celebrate with me.

***

It’s hard to understand the feeling until you have lived it, of a heart that is spread across countries and places. No technology, no video call or WhatsApp message, can bridge that fully to make you feel whole.

I frequently wish I could scoop up the people I love and move them to Netherlands, also importing with them the warmth of the Irish people.

I left Ireland and returned to the Netherlands, where I had lived before, because I felt I did not fully "fit in" in Ireland. I had idealogical disagreements with how Irish academia was funded and run, and was also frustrated by how things just... wouldn’t get done. I felt a high inertia to change on the Emerald Isle, where things stayed the same for better or for worse. People talked around issues, rather than tackling them head-on. When I moved there from the Netherlands, I was even told that I was too direct and had to be more tactful in my approach.

In other words, I was "too Dutch direct" for Ireland. And I longed to leave it for greener pastures back from whence I came, to a place with good public infrastructure, innovative momentum, and high quality of life.

And now that I'm back? I’m so lonely.

Community was traded for bikes and bus lanes.

The warmth of the Irish people, such as the taxi driver and the bus passengers who happily congratulated me on my wedding - strangers simply happy for my happiness - is not here. People keep to themselves, and the minute I speak English or my Dutch is not perfect I am treated differently.

I believed if I spoke fluent Dutch, I would finally belong and find community. For the last year and half, I have thrown myself into Dutch, hiring a private Dutch tutor at great personal expense to myself.

I’ve had to accept, now though, that I will never be fully accepted in the Netherlands - at least, not as much as a Dutch native. I’ve spoken with international people and families who, despite learning fluent Dutch, do not feel accepted. Some have even had their children relentlessly bullied at school for being non-Dutch. They are still “the foreigner.”

I’m also coming to embrace myself as a deeply emotional, sensitive, neurodivergent human. Unfortunately, this does not always interact well with Dutch pragmatism and cultural norms. There’s a saying here, that, in English, is: “if you are normal, you are already enough.” But I’m far from the Dutch norm on language and in soul. Ik ben niet normaal.

So, I’m stopping my Dutch lessons, because I realized that I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I will always be the American, the outsider, different, and this took the wind out of my sails. I’ve lost motivation to practice Dutch. I’m grieving, confused.

There are of course other reasons to learn a language - to learn Dutch - and I suspect I will return to it. For now, though, I need some time to process that it’s not THE key to community that I thought it would be. It could help, perhaps, but I will always be Other. “The American.”

Can I form a community still? Maybe. I do have friends here who take me as I am, but most of the times I feel like I’m too big, too much, and that I need to shrink. Community is deeply important to me, and I feel like I have so much love to give and it’s just .. stuck. I can’t expand and serve.

***

Leaving Galway, the bus back to the airport pulling onto the highway, my mind swam with these pains around community. I felt my heart pulled back. But I went on my way, with tears in my eyes.

My mind further wandered to the work of Irish author Manchán Magan, who explored connecting with the soul of the land and the truth of myths that lie outside science and history. I’ve communed with the soul of Ireland and invested some of my best years there, and it had greeted me with rainbows and sunshine and sent me off with rain and tears.

I know I made the right choice moving to the Netherlands, despite the pain. It was time to go. During my visit, Ireland honored me for what I have of my soul there, but I also knew that my journey now took me to commune with other souls - the soul of the Netherlands, found in that patch of woods by my house with the herons, and the soul of the home I am creating with the partner I so dearly love. This is my path, but my heart breaks.

A part of me will always be Galway.

As the plane takes off, I watch the lights of Ireland fade behind me. It’s a turbulent flight, a challenge for me as I strive to overcome post-burnout flight anxiety.

I focus on one thought, like a sword of light cutting through the fear: “I’m scared but this journey is worth it. I love them.“

All of them, no matter where they are in the world.

***

As I sit here writing, gazing at a beautiful pair of earrings - twisted silver Celtic knots and rich, dark green amber, purchased for my wedding at the Galway Christmas market - the truth is clear:

There is no perfect place for me.

And today, of all days, Thanksgiving, I feel my heart is being pulled apart.

I’m too US, too Netherlands, or too Ireland. Shaped by the landscape and their histories, the people and their stories. Forever changed, a tree with an American core and European branches.

Trying to accept this as I have a deep human drive for belonging - to be understood - especially after years being grossly misunderstood as a deeply sensitive neurodivergent human, is difficult for me. I love this quote from the Shadow Archive on Substack, that “to be human is to be an animal that needs witnesses.”

And yet, in moments of deep peace, I find my grasp on this drive to belong become a bit looser as I simply witness myself. Buddhism teaches that the only thing that is constant is change, and that the self is an illusion. The two concepts play off each other, helping us recognize the suffering that comes with clinging to that which is inherently impermanent and unstable. The former concept is easier for me to accept than the latter, which is difficult for me to grasp.

However, I momentary glimpsed the illusion of self while doing a zen mediation, where the guide simply stated: “I is a thought.”

And I experienced it, for a moment, the way I had gathered thoughts into a fortress I called Self, and yet - it was insubstantial. An illusion of labels, concepts, ideas, beliefs. And a strong desire to find a location for my fortress to put down roots.

An yet, I was so much more than this fortress, and also so much simpler.

Maybe I am from everywhere, and therefore, from nowhere.

Photos: Rainbow in Galway and gorgeous green amber earrings

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