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Sick and Tired
I want to go out and see the entire world. Can I ever stop looking back over my shoulder?
By Jessa Crispin
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| I returned to Cork in the west of Ireland seven years after I moved away. I hadn’t lived there long the first time around: six months, the longest I could stay on a paltry visa given to a 19-year-old girl with no skills, no money, and no connections in the country. And it was not like I had a particularly wonderful time during those six months. There had been a severing from both my family and my sort-of boyfriend. I rarely left the very tiny room in my apartment, sneaking out only when I heard the last of my three roommates leave for the day.
I was there simply to test the limits of my leash. I wanted to see if it would prove to be made of elastic and snap me back to my confining Kansas home. And it worked. I was a world traveler, fearless and untethered…when I was sober. After a few drinks, I would find myself in the unheated hallway, making international collect calls on the payphone, trying at least to keep my voice steady even if my hands were not.
And here I was in Cork, my grand return. It was post-Celtic Tiger, post-build-up along the river, post-shiny new shopping centers whose windows reflected my figure back endlessly, until I was unsure which one was me. None of this had been there before, not the fancy little cafe with the gourmet 6-euro cheese-and-pickle sandwiches, not the entire street where my pension was located. I had been here an entire currency ago. Now there was no friendly, dirty James Joyce on my money. Now it was bridges and windows.
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