I Can't Get No...Satisfaction

It was almost 5PM on December 30, 2006. It should have been dark, and yet the light looked like summertime. It reminded me of the light in LA right before night falls. It reminded me of how I so wanted to travel. Wouldn’t it be great I thought, if you could just keep on driving, off the island and on to another?

Sporadic holidays, however, were less of an option now than they would have been this time last year, when all that tied me to Dublin was a part-time job and…and then I realised—I had changed jobs on numerous occasions in the past year, I had changed some friends, I had even changed my drink—but I was still in the same relationship that I am in today. That had to mean something, but it did not signify the prime reason for my staying in Dublin...or did it?

Firstly there was college. I thought about how I talked my way into Journalism school, and how I wouldn’t be walking away from that until I was well and truly finished. I realised, I didn’t want to travel because I disliked my life in Dublin. I liked it a lot. I was studying one of my passions in college. I also had an unrealistically supportive family. Add to that a number of true, good friends and a significant other who appeared to want to share their future—or at least their twenties—with me. Isolating myself on the other side of the Atlantic right now seemed about as good timing as arriving first at your own birthday party.

Later that night, as I tossed and turned in bed, having indulged in too much mulled wine and O.C. DVDs, I had a realisation. What had excelled me in life in the past year was my dissatisfaction. Always believing that you must control what is in your hands, because there is so much that is out of your hands that cannot be controlled. That was practically my life motto. Dissatisfaction hadn’t upset me so much as driven me to going that extra mile in life. Travelling all those thousands of miles would just be another push I’d give myself.

“What else is there”, I wondered—the fault of a friend, a few years older than I—telling me to be careful about settling down so young. I knew, partly from some time spent on the other side of the pond, partly from the aforementioned over-indulging of The O.C.—that there were other people, other cultures, other friendships, other relationships—waiting to be discovered, experienced, and of course, written about.

But would everything still be waiting for me when I got back to my fair city? Would my significant other welcome me back with open arms and say, “I’m so glad you’re back”? I knew then that it was a chance I wasn’t willing to take - yet. Maybe in Summertime I'd be ready. Maybe I would be ready in a year’s time. Maybe I’d be ready at 25.

But when would I stop pushing, I had to wonder. When would I finally be satisfied? For once, I didn’t have the answers to my own questions, at least not yet. But someday, I would find them, whichever country they lay in.