Writing therapy

Another post on the same day, after months of nothing. Well. But I don't know, I jsut felt like I had to write some things down. So, warning, this is a bit melancholy!

Tomorrow I'll have been in Dublin for 3 weeks. In those 3 weeks, I've started my new job, found an apartment, opened a bank account, registered with Immigration, set up phone, broadband and cable accounts, met new people, joined the Dublin chapter of my church, and so on and so on. But somehow it doesn't seem real. It seems like I've been on a long vacation, and that I will be flying back to Hamburg soon, to my familiar apartment and back to my familiar job, and speaking in German again, part of system that was strange 6 years ago, but now is as familiar as my hometown in the US. I'm happy to be here in Dublin, starting a new life. But it seems to emphasize that I really have no home. This is the 9th city that I've lived in in my life. In some ways, that certainly makes it easier to move around. When you're a nomad, schlepping your life around on your back seems, somehow, normal. But at some point, you've got to put down roots. I had thought that Hamburg was it, that I would build a family there, and have a cute little German house and hang white lace curtains from the kitchen window, and eventually become a little old German lady who peers out her window at the goings on of her neighbors and rides her old bike into the village for groceries and gossip (ok, it'll probably be all internet shopping by then, but one must have one's illusions...). But life has gone another direction. I prefer to believe that God has decided that I belong in Dublin. I hope so. So maybe this will be it, where I can put down roots. Minor problem is that I'm not remotely Irish - maybe just a drop of Irish blood in there somewhere. But I am half German, so I kind of belonged there. Can I belong here? Do I want to belong here? It's so different. But a good different, I think. I'll get used to it. After all, it's only been 3 weeks.

Hmmmm, this post is considereably more personal than normal. Well, next post I'll move back to pithy sarcasm. Cheers, y'all.