Footing Found in Castletown

Taking off to Ireland will be a grand adventure! I will take to it like a duck to water…so I thought. It was not like I haven’t traveled on my own before. I had lived in Rome for almost a year and wandered Italy extensively. I enjoy traveling and after ten years of a limited wandering existence, I had the opportunity to take off again and travel to Ireland and the UK. It would be like riding a bike; I got this…I thought. Well, my bike was old and rusty and the tires were a bit flat.

I arrived in Ireland and was a bit knocked off center. I checked into the Airbnb I reserved for the month in Celbridge (just outside Dublin) and I immediately go to sleep (a total rookie mistake).

Day two comes and I rally myself to go for a walk around the town and end up walking the grounds of a palatial estate called Castletown. I don’t tour the actual home, but promise to come back and do so. I go to the grocery store instead to buy some food and go back to the apartment to not sleep because I was an idiot and slept the previous day away.

I was completely frustrated with myself. What was I doing?!?! After more than a year planning this great escape, I had FINALLY arrived and I had no idea what to do with myself. I was heading off to Dublin the next day to run the Rock n Roll Half Marathon and I figured, that is where I would find my groove. Taking advantage of my sleepless night, I booked all of these tours in Dublin that I found in my guidebook. I was going to make up for lost time (and if you are keeping track at home, I am only on day two of a three month trip…go ahead and add over-achiever to the Type A/Perfectionist line-up).

So, Dublin Day arrives and I am still feeling off-center and even a bit timid. The tours don’t motivate me and I can’t figure out what my problem is…it wasn’t homesickness. It wasn’t that I was not enjoying traveling alone; in many cases prefer it. I just began to question everything. What was I doing? Was quitting my job to travel a huge mistake? Was I just lost and decided to go to Ireland? What was my plan here?

What I failed to fully realize is that it had been ten years since my last wander. Ten years of honing my Type A/Perfectionist qualities that are so easy going (insert sarcasm). Ten years of advancing in a career that I am not sure I want anymore. More than ten years since I have not had a job. The truth is, I have always had a job since I graduated college. In Rome, from day one I was training to be a TEFL Instructor and then working as a teacher. There was a three month period about 8 years ago where I did not have a job, but finding a job became my full time job. I always had a purpose. Focus.

And that’s what it comes down to, direction. I have always had direction from my boss, my job, my family; I have never reported to myself. While I had believed all these years I was a traveling wanderer, I realized I have no idea how to wander. And it was stressing me out!

Taking my stress on a run at the half marathon, I started to clear my head. I was overanalyzing EVERYTHING! I had saved and planned for just this, to travel and figure out what I want. Not what the guidebooks or anyone else tells me to do, but what I want.

I started, as all things do in Ireland, at the pub. After the race I had lunch and chatted with the bartender who taught me some Irish slang and tried (and failed) to get me to like Guinness. Then I went to a Literary Pub Crawl, where actors took you to pubs with literary significance and shared stories about Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and other notable Irish authors. I loved it! The literary nerd in me soaked it up.

When I returned to Celbridge, I set out to hit the reset button. I was not going to worry about hitting every tour and landmark in the guidebook. I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted, and report to no one, not even Ms. Type A. So I headed to Castletown to take the estate tour. I walked through rooms furnished in the 18th century, and learned about the lives of the servants and the family they served, in particular Lady Louisa Lennox, who with her husband inherited the estate in the late 1700’s. The tour gave glimpses into how Louisa entertained, slept, and generally went about her day. Standing in Louisa’s bedroom, I looked out the window that provided a sweeping view of the grounds of Castletown. Off in the distance was a small stone structure, which I learned was where Louisa would take her afternoon tea.

After the tour, I went to the cafe onsite, ordered a tea to go, and walked the wild and gorgeous Irish landscape found in Castletown on my way to have tea with Louisa. I sat in the stone structure, sipped my tea, and just breathed. No thoughts except to imagine Louisa sitting in this same spot, drinking tea looking toward home. I also watched as people walked their dogs in the park and let them leap through the tall grass of the fields with joy. As I sat and enjoyed the simplicity and peace around me, I found the feeling I was looking for. I found my calm and I finally found me in Ireland, ready to wander. Who knows, maybe I have Louisa to thank.

I think Castletown and tea with Louisa will become a regular stop for me while I am in Ireland. I did something similar when I was in Rome. Each week I would go to Santa Maria Maggiore to just sit and center myself. Not sure if it was the routine or just the time to be still, but it was something that grounded me. Castletown grounded me today and helped find my footing.

So now I sit in a pub (of course) with a Smithwick’s (my Irish beer of choice) at my elbow writing this post and preparing to take off to Kilkenny on a brand new bike with full tires.