Tine Returns.

It has been exactly one long month since I have posted on here from Ireland.  I have returned back to the bitter cold and just bitter Vermont.  I am not sure if I can say that my re-entry into the United States has been welcoming, but it sure has been eventful.  If anything I don't know if I experienced culture shock entering back to the hectic and chaotic states, or just more shocked that I actually grew from my experience in Ireland.  While over there I thought I hated their way of life and everything else as a matter of fact.  You could always expect to be late wherever you went, which I hate.  Everyone is always overly joyful and pleasant all the time (literally all the time) which I hate.  Anyway I could probably go on, but you get the point.  All of these things which used to drive me crazy I am finding myself miss terribly.  One of my first experiences back in the states was a wretched witch of a woman who was busy whining about two young toddlers having trouble crawling through the metal detector, she didn't give it up until she took herself right infront of every other entitled person in line to get to a different machine...  I used every inch of self control to hold me back from turning around and telling the wonderful witch to shut the front door and get over it.  I wasn't quite sure why those delightful two minutes of her time were so disturbed by those innocent children.  Sappy...I know.  Why do I care...?  Well, because it just proved to me that every American (or most) are so caught up in their own worlds to give a crap about anyone else around them.  This all came crashing down infront of me at that very moment in JFK airport because if this were in Ireland, seven pale Irishmen would've been scooping up those little hispanic toddlers and walking them right through the detector saying, "top o' the mornin' to ya," and all without one pinch of a negative thought and let alone a nasty comment.  While that was a nice story explaining how Irish people are so helpful and how inconsiderate American's are, it just really made me appreciate that Irish way of life that I would have thought to hate before actually experiencing it while living in Ireland.  I look back and can appreciate each conversation I had with a single taxi driver about anything from the first snow in 15 years to their sons desire to marry me (whom who I never met), and the nice barista who served me coffee every morning acting like she'd known me my why life and even remembered the little sticker that stopped my coffee from exploding all over my clothes each morning.  It really is the little things that make each and every day go by.  So...as I've entered back into this american culture, somewhere stuck between happy hippie and stuck up American, I really have started to enjoy the things that most take for granted.

I'll let that be for now, but take a minute and think about the things that make you happy.  Everything else that doesn't, just doesn't matter.  Surround yourself with those who you love, those who make you laugh, and those who can appreciate the little things that make life go by.