Vacations can be weird. We spend months planning and saving for them only to find them over in what can feel like the blink of an eye. Poof – done. We get home with a suitcase full of dirty laundry, a bunch of photos to upload and a yen for our own pillow.
That being said, there have been some long days on this trip. Arrival day is always a challenge as a body tries to shake off the assault of 12+ hours of travel and a five-hour time difference. Factor in a bit of dehydration, a cranky 14-year-old and a sleeping pill hangover (mine, not the teen’s) and you’ve got yourself a bonafide rough day.
We haven’t been especially up and at ’em in the mornings because it turns out Griffin isn’t really a morning person. That’s okay, though, because the evenings in Ireland, particularly in the summer months, go on forever with the skies only truly darkening on the far side of 10 pm. Are you familiar with Yeats’ He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven? In it he talks of “…night and light and the half light.” Visit Ireland and you’ll know exactly what he meant.
I wish I had longer to stay with my family. There are only two remaining siblings of my Father’s, from the original family of 14 children, and each time I leave Ireland I go knowing that I may not meet them again. My time here feels far too short, but I do miss my guys at home and the life we are creating there together. Whether long or short, these days won’t come again. All we can do is live them fully.
DelSo 
Maybe Bono was riffing off Yeats in U2’s ‘Bad’:
If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame
I read those lyrics myself earlier today, Anonymous, and wished I were clever enough to work them into the post somewhere. Thank you for doing it for me. Cheers.