the tiny regional plane we took from Dublin to Glasgow...with a propeller!
I’m experiencing a sort of low-point in the trip. Perhaps it is all the rain of Ireland and Scotland. Perhaps it is just the up and down cycle I always seem to be on. But I just kind of feel like an impostor. Who am I to think I can be one of those cool people who backpacks around Europe? Who am I to think I can quit my job and make a living in my own business? Who am I to think this blog is worth reading?
Even as I write this I actually feel a little better. That tends to happen. The things I tell myself are usually such construed versions of the truth that they pale when voiced. But these feelings are always with me. The hard, rooted ugliness of my fears based in one of the most human desires: to be worth something. To be cool, to be loved, to be important and to have one’s dreams be worth dreaming about.
I am living one of my most important dreams right now: traveler. I have always wanted to be sitting in this lounge with coal burning in the fireplace and Ben Nevis up there somewhere in the clouds. I have always wanted to carry my groceries and a laptop bag up the hill and eat frozen pizza with dented-can hard cider. I have always wanted to sit right here with my precious laptop and husband as he reads terrifying stories of hiking gone wrong written by a mountain guide, listening to music that reminds me of days at the People’s Market at UMass. I have always wanted to sit in a pub chatting with new friends and listen to our three different English accents mix. And it is enough. And I guess I am cool enough to deserve this.
Also the longer I am away from Seek Your Course, the more nervous I get that I am not doing enough. (Oh, the ever-present desire to be working!) Businesses are tricky and it feels like I have left my 6 month old baby with my mom a whole ocean away. (She is approving listings and doing the 5 In The Morning posts for these three weeks.) I worry and I fret, but I guess I just need to give myself this time to travel and I will work on all the fabulous plans and developments I have in store when I get to Spain. It will still be there and things are humming along just find without me steering for these few weeks. Trying to let go and trust that these paths were made available – both of them!
Last day in Donegal (Donegal Castle and town)
Some footage of driving on the left on the narrow country roads in Ireland:
Top row: Cow herding while driving back to Dublin; the rest: here in Scotland
Out at a pub in Fort William with hostel-mates
Mmmmmmm....pressed leather ceiling!