I would have done a part 2 of my experience travelling back to Ireland sooner but when I was still in the Netherlands (about a day after my last post) I received some bad news from home. Since then things have been a bit all over the place so I haven't been very active for a while.
When I was in The Netherlands, I got a call from my mum that my dad was very ill. He was in hospital and had to go in for emergency surgery. Without going into too much detail, a few days before this call I knew he wasn't doing the best but I was told there was nothing to worry about and that he would recover soon but things had taken a turn for the worst and something happened that none of us expected. This was a lot to take in and of course very worrying for the whole family.
The last few days in The Netherlands were nice. We went bowling, which I was very bad at at first. I was rolling the balls in the gutter every time. It started to get a bit embarrassing but after getting a feel for it I ended up not being too bad. I even managed to get a few strikes in a row. We spent some time walking around the shops and tried to make the most of the time we had left. Of course the whole time I was worried about my dad but I tried to keep positive thoughts. I couldn't wait to get home and be here with my family.
The day came on the 22nd of July for our flight back to Ireland. We had a late flight from Brussels, so we spent the morning packing a few last things, chilled out and headed to the airport around 5pm. Check in was at half 7 and our flight left at 10:10pm. We arrived in good time and soon checked in our bags. Got through security checks and then waited in line for passport check. Up until this everything was going pretty smoothly but no, not anymore. We were stuck in a long queue that felt like it was barely moving for hours and still standing in line when the flight was scheduled to board. It seemed like this was the case for a lot of flights.
Loads of people were freaking out and trying to skip each other, saying their flight was leaving but this was the case with almost everyone and all we could do was wait and hope the plane didn’t leave without us. It became very stressful but there was a big group of people in front of me that were on the same flight. This made me a bit calmer as I thought they wouldn’t leave without all of us. After a very long stressful wait we finally got through passport control and ran to the gate. When we got there everyone was still waiting. They hadn’t even started boarding yet. Phew, now we knew we didn’t miss it, we could relax a little.
A few minutes later we boarded the plane pretty fast, now to wait for take off. They took a long time to leave so it was another waiting game. At least we were on the plane though. The plane finally left and the actual flight was easy, no where near as long as the flight from Mexico to Brussels of course so it felt pretty quick. We were pretty tired from all the waiting before the flight though so we were very excited to land. We landed in Dublin Airport later than expected and we were just so ready to get off and get our bags. Of course there had to be another delay and we were waiting for a while to be let off the plane. Finally we were let off the plane, quickly got our bags and surprisingly we were met with pretty warm weather outside, warm for Ireland anyway.
Due to arriving late, there was no buses going from the airport to my home town and because my family were very stressed with everything going on at home I didn’t want to add another stress by asking them to collect us. We were lucky enough to have a very kind friend that came to pick us up and bring us home. The journey from the airport was about 3 hours and we arrived home at around 3am. I guess my family were on alert while sleeping and woke up when they heard the car and greeted me and my girlfriend at the door. We were all very excited to see each other and even thought it was pretty late we had a small catch up and then went to bed.
Now that you’ve heard all about the journey I just want to off load a bit of my thoughts about coming back. So here it goes ….
After making the decision to move back to Ireland there has been times where I’ve wondered if I was doing the right thing for right now. I don’t plan on staying in Ireland for the rest of my life or anything like that and I hope to move on from here when I am ready but for now there are many different reasons why I have made the decision to come back.
Before I heard the bad news about my dad, when I doubted my decision, I would think to myself that no matter how it turns out to trust that everything happens for a reason. Once I heard my dad was very sick I had no doubt in my mind that I was making the right decision. I just wanted to get back and be here with my family and be by my dads side. Although I wish he was not sick, the timing of me coming home and this happening is very weird and in a way feels like I was meant to be here and is why I left when I did. Either way I am just so glad that I am here now and that I didn't decide to come back later or to stay in Mexico.
My dad has experienced some complications since the surgery and right now isn’t doing very good. We are taking it day by day, trying to stay positive and hoping that he starts to get better very soon.
Thank you for reading.