Baile Átha See Ya

it's not you, it's m(50)e.

I was nineteen when we first met. I was nervous, naive and eager to please. After our first night together I called my Dad and cried. I’m not sure whether it was the two free cans of cider that brought on this bought of melancholy or the harrowing fact that I was in a new place with new people yet I still remained the same that shook me to my core. I called him with hot, fat tears in my eyes and through heaving sobs told him that I couldn’t do it. The next morning I decided that I would leave you, I packed my bags, marched to the bus stop and I took Dublin Bus for the first time. I guess you could say this is when our love affair officially began, I met two kind strangers who showed me how to navigate you, told me I was on the Northside and who smiled sweetly when I asked why people stuck their hand out as the bus approached.

For a few months after, I kept you at arm's length, never settling in and getting to know the real you. It took sometime but after a while, I decided I wanted to try again and you welcomed me back with open arms.

As with any love affair things started slow. Initially, I met you with groups, catching glimpses of the you I was falling for and would crave more. I began to test the waters, I explored you when no one was watching and tried to unravel why I was drawn to you. I found things I loved about you that no one else saw. I spent early mornings clinging to you and late nights nestled in your arms. As I explored the city I realised that something inside me was also unravelling. I realised that the curiosity I had for the city also allowed for me to explore myself and I was able to see myself for the person others saw. For the first time in my life I felt ok about it. It is Dublin that brought me to life, shown a light on a part of me I never wanted exposed and was my number one supporter on both the good and bad days. In some ways this terrified me. I have never acted like this before, never been somewhere like this before, it was new, exciting, nauseating and I didn’t know what to do or where to put my hands. I trusted the feeling, however, I followed it and it brought me true and undiluted joy. In September 2017 we made it official, spending every moment together. I loved everything about you and the things I didn’t love I didn’t focus on. I saw the bigger picture, the people, the places and Dublin you were my darling. 

I finally had what I always wanted, a place that I could be myself.

A space where I drank cans of warm Polish beer with English students who wore American band t-shirts. I danced on the sticky floors of pubs and clubs that security guards didn’t ask for ID because they had seen us every night that week. I made friends that made me smile from ear to ear. Fell in love a few times, had my heart broken a few more. I went to Elvis and Angela Merkel themed house parties. I had big wins, wrote essays, I had small wins, made documentaries, organised a fashion show with my best friend. Drank gallons of flat whites and vats Heineken. I made friends with roommates who would wait wrapped up in a blanket until I came home to watch Love Island with. Danced, danced some more, danced in a snowstorm and through tears. I got my first “proper” job, then a second, then a third, wrote a dissertation and got Covid. Ate langoustines, met my best friend when she arrived back from Hong Kong, ate pasta bakes on Saturdays and roast chickens on Sundays. Laughed so much it makes me laugh now just thinking about how happy I was, I am, I will be again.

It was a perfect city; small enough to navigate, big enough to get lost in. You were my home, the people my family and the spaces my own. 

Like most relationships, however, after a while our love began to fade. It is hard for me to put a finger on the exact moment things began to go downhill. All I remember is that the cracks, once fine lines and wrinkles, easy to overlook began to get too big and I couldn’t but gawk open mouthed at the chasms that stretched out in front of me. In my third year of college my friends created a Facebook group entitled “Cranespotting”. There was one rule: only post pictures of cranes in Dublin. Although initially this was funny it slowly became a searing piece of social commentary on how much building, remodelling and rebuilding was underway in this small city.

We may have all been in a haze of cheap cans and rollie smoke but just beyond the horizon there was something more sinister looming. Around this time some friends had their student accommodation costs rise by €2,000 overnight. Soon after many of us noticed that our favourite pubs, clubs and restaurants were holding their last hoorah before they closed to make way for larger, sterile and glassier venues. These spaces were like our families, yes they may not have been perfect, but they were ours, we were the only ones allowed to tear them down. Losing these places was like losing one of our closest confidants. As the spaces seemed to slowly disappear from the city so did my friends.

At first one or two went to study abroad, then others moved home and after the pandemic the city began to feel like an empty vessel. Although I missed my friends, I didn’t begrudge them, all of their reasons were valid - “it’s just too expensive”, “I don’t make enough”, “everyone else is already gone”. Honestly, I felt all of those things too but I wasn’t dominant enough in this relationship to be able to say goodbye. A part of me hoped that things would go back to the way they were. Instead of embracing the change I became cold, dismissive and inattentive to you. I watched the city transform yet I turned away when it tried to kiss me. I wanted reassurance it couldn’t give me, I wanted it to grab me, wrap me in its arms and tell me it was all going to go back to the way it was. To the way things used to be.

When people ask me why I left, I say because I don’t recognise you anymore. I say I hate the homogenised caricature you have become. I say that I’m angry that you fucked us. I scream that I can’t believe that the thing I loved the most, that I gave six years of my life to did this to me. The life we made together, the time we spent together - did it mean nothing to you?

That, however, is not the truth. To say that I feel only one emotion toward you flattens the depth of our relationship. It oversimplifies the complexity of our love and the myriad of circumstance and beauty that brought us together. Beyond the anger is hurt, a deep and ebbing pain that only time can heal. I am nostalgic for the life I had, I thought I was going to have and a part of me still wants. The part of me that is deeply hurt is tender and subtle that isn’t looking back at our time together. It is the part that ponders the what ifs, buts and could have beens. I am mourning the life I had dreamed about with you.

The real reason I left is because, I’m different.

I’m not the same as when we first met. Neither of us are. We’re now older, maybe not wiser but we want different things. You want glossy coffee shops, high rise hotels and sterile spaces and I want, well I’m not actually entirely sure what I want. Not just yet, so I guess that’s why I left. I have to go and find out. I guess we could be friends again in the future, but we were never really friends to begin with. We were thrown together tangled in passion and circumstance. I know our paths will cross again, at birthday parties, friend’s weddings and nostalgic nights. Maybe someday I will walk along the canal and laugh about the great times we had together, and smile about the tenderness of our love and youth. I will tell you about how much you helped me, gave me the space to grow, planted the seeds of big ideas and confidence in myself. For now, however, I am ready to go. I must go. I must be free.

Dublin, it’s not you. It’s me.

HERE is a playlist that remind me of some of the best times in the Big Smoke!

Things that should NEVER change in Dublin

• Pints of Guinness in Grogan’s

• Brunch at Bibi’s

• Bimibaps in Kim Chi Hop House

• Bonobos - never had a bad night there

• Dancing in The Workmans Club

• Taking the Dart to the beach on a sunny day

• People watching on Fade Street

  Things that Made Me Smile This Week

• Bacon and Cabbage

• Cups of very hot tea

• Someone referring to my life as a “kaleidoscope of delusion”

• Darren Hough - my life saver over the last few months

• Peanut M&Ms

• Dancing with Robin and Tadhg

• Brooklyn Bridge Park

• Meeting new people

• Going to the Irish Consulate

• Taking myself on a date

  An Edit from this Week’s Newsletter:

  The people that textured my city, the places that breathed such light into corners and sharp edges of dark days, the things we did together with those people in those places.

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