You can visualize it, pray for it, practice it and wish for it, but until you actually land something, you never know how it’s going to turn out. I watched a lot of gymnastics when I was growing up (probably because I was told I was too tall to ever be a good gymnast) and I remember how important the landing was in any routine. Even if the rest of your routine was awesome, if you blew that landing, there was no way you were going to medal.
No complaints from this one
Now that I’ve been in Ireland for two months, I can look back at how fortuitous our landing here has been. The universe was definitely taking care of us when it popped us in our neighborhood in this specific part of the world. We could not have asked for a better living situation.
The neighborhood we live in is full of children and Eli’s school is a 15-minute walk away. A coworker of mine lives around the corner from us and has already become a good friend. She’s not only introduced us around in the neighborhood, but also invited me to join her book club. (Squeee! I’m in a book club again!) Her husband is a talented musician and includes Adam in a weekly jam session, providing both friendship and creative inspiration. They have shown themselves to be awesome friends, right off the bat, and cannot escape us if they tried.
A scene from my morning commute to the train station
We don’t have a car, but there is a grocery store and pharmacy across the street from our house, as well as a bus stop right outside of the development where we live. A bike lane that is situated 500 yards from our house takes us into downtown Greystones and to the beachfront in 10 minutes. I walk to the train station in the morning, about 20 minutes away, and my commute to work takes all of 9 minutes. Dublin and all it offers is a mere 40-minute train ride away. Public transport rocks.
All of this to say that I don’t think we could have chosen a more ideal place for us to land in Ireland. We rented our apartment sight unseen because we needed somewhere to live. There aren’t many homes for rent in our town so we jumped in blindly. I honestly believe that our leap of faith was rewarded by the universe with all of the benefits I mentioned above. We didn’t question what we were doing and things have sorted out much to our liking.
It’s only been two months but we already feel like a part of the community. Part of this is our willingness to say yes to any invitation (clean up the nearby mountain? sure!) and our desire to take part in local events that sound interesting, but the biggest reason is just how friendly and open the Irish people are.
Doing our part on Sugar Loaf mountain
We now go places around town and see people we know. There was a moment one morning, when I was out running downtown by the seafront. I heard someone call out my name and in that second, I felt it. The happiness of being in the right place, the certainty that we’ve done the right thing and the pleasant surprise of seeing another mother from Eli’s school who not only knew my name, but called it out to say hi.
I give this landing a solid 10. As does the German judge.