Time To Reflect

With the passing of another St. Patrick's Day, I found my self looking at different things than I had in the past.  

Whereas North American's celebrate St Patty's day as a day for drinking green beer and wearing green, in Ireland, this is not the case.

They do like a good reason to celebrate, and will have celebrations for the 6 days prior in Dublin, but they won't be seen wearing green any more than any other day.  And they do wear a lot of green on an every day basis!

Instead, they will wear a bunch of irish shamrocks (not four leaf clovers) on the breast of their shirts or jackets to symbolize the teachings of the holy trinity by St. Patrick.  And while he wasn't actually made a saint my the church, St Patrick is one of the most well known saints.

I bring this up due to the shift in my perception of culture and history.  On my last trip over, I discovered that I had more than just ancestry that had come from Ireland - but that I still had family ties.  Ties that I had never realized that I had until about three weeks ago.

And now I feel an unbelievable pull towards Ireland, it's cultures, history and traditions, as I feel like I have finally found something that gives me roots on this wonderful world.  Where will this mean that I go next?  I really have no idea.  Only time will tell.

Why Some Things Change....

Henry Miller, a man that not many remember, once said that "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."

This could be why some people thrive on traveling to return home.  With travels, come a new way of seeing things, and understanding things.  So that when you return home, one can never truly understand where one was before.

Family that you always fight with in my case, become a link to our past, in a place that you may never be.  Friends either come along for the ride and put up with your incessant chatter about your next trip - which in essence is like your next fix.  Travelers crave their next get away with about the same zest as a junkie craves his next hit.  (Though it is a hard addiction to have.)

My greatest downfall, was my inability to keep my itchy feet to myself.  I told everyone and anyone that I wanted to leave, and that I wanted to get out.  This made even my best friends shy around me, and keep their distance, as they knew that I would soon leave.  

And while when we return from our travels, we can not see things for what they were, so the people that we leave behind find it hard to find the people that we were before we left.

But still the traveler will travel.  And those afraid will not.