Adjusting...

I guess the time has come to close this blog. Our adventures in Ireland have come to a pause. We feel in our hearts that the experiences, the people, and the culture will be a part of us forever. We hope to go back and look forward to that day meanwhile we are slowly adjusting to life as we knew it. Right now I feel a bit like the African porters who carried their masters' belongings for a series of days until they wouldn't get up one day. When asked why they wouldn't continue the journey they responded that they were waiting for their souls to catch up. -Bruce Chatwin

I am waiting for my soul to catch up and more of our current reality to sink in which I know will happen all too soon. Honestly, I don't know if I am ready for it. I feel like we have all changed in small ways. How do we go about fitting into the same mold that we left? Do we break that mold and form a new one? Will we soon minimize our experience to move on with life here? If so, a part of me will grieve the loss of all that we learned and the experience of Northern Ireland in us. I want to somehow capture and be able to live in those memories while here in Molalla, Oregon and so I am dragging my feet to engage in life as we knew it. I don't exactly know how to move forward.

I will miss fish-n-chip shops, digestive cookies, new friends, neighbors, walking to school with the kids, the peat fire, the history, the culture, the castles, the green hedges, the new places and faces, the Irish brogue, curry dishes, different wines, the parking on the sidewalks, churches, cathedrals, mums and tots groups, the Co-op down the street, double decker bus rides downtown, and so much more.

Don't get me wrong. It feels good to be home and we have loved every minute that we have spent with family and friends, catching up on a year gone by. It is such a blessing to have the home and furnishings that we do, a year away has awakened a gratitude for what we have and the relationships we have missed.

This year was an experience that will not be forgotten by this little family of Q's. Maybe I should leave the blog open, you know, just in case life brings another time for us to adventure into the "Emerald Isle"...