“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes.”

-Walt Whitman

As I anticipated the next chapter of my life in Ireland from my remote suburban town north of Chicago, I imagined the world unfolding like a rosebud before me.

I imagined my life abroad to resemble the turquoise shoebox of adventures I stored under my desk, full of ticket stubs, receipts printed in Greek and Hebrew, full of photos in which my smile nearly extended to my ears, and full of exotic stories and thrilling vistas to draw me to my knees in awe.

Thus it was through rose-tinted spectacles that I packed for euphoria. I left little room in my suitcase for trepidation, for the expectation of lonely evenings or quarrels with friends I’d yet to make, for lectures I’d play truant from in favour of sleep, for repeated heartache, for messy nights that end in the toilet. I zipped tight the bulging luggage with only the sense that, from now on, life would unravel like a dream.

There were no thorns in my utopian presumptions.

And as I near the incredibly fast-approaching end of what will definitively be the most transformative school year of my existence, a million revelations weighing heavy upon my chest, I see these Elysian Fields anew.

Life is not a utopia. You cannot cherry-pick the good from the bad; they are forever and inevitably intertwined. Each memorable experience of this year has left me with the searing impression that polarisation is a crutch we fall upon to alleviate the burden of confronting a shade of grey amid the temptation to choose black or white.

My reading week to Berlin, for instance, was notably imbued with objectively good and bad affairs. I spent the week with a dear friend, to whom I grew exponentially closer thanks to the trial we endured in our three-day venture homeward. The trip forced us to defy obstacle after obstacle, to be resourceful and quick-witted; it made us cry, it ate up our money, it cut into our study time. I laughed harder than I thought possible.

As for college, the course was not the English-centric flight of fancy I anticipated. Many of the lectures fell beneath the standard I thought Trinity might provide, and left me yearning for something more, for something mind-expanding, something enriching. I had quixotic expectations, inexorably doomed by the reality of a system I knew little about. For an English student at Trinity, your mind will only be as “enriched” as you want it to be. There is no guiding force shoving literary knowledge down your throat, implementing weekly checkpoints to assess how much you’ve learned. The assessment comes twice a year, in the form of essays or exams that determine 100% of your grade for each module.

It is not the system for everyone.

Coming from an American high school where regimented study and daily assignments kept my lazy tendencies in check, I’ve struggled with the complete lack of structure Trinity provides. I wanted to be able to say I was thriving here, that studying only English was exactly the dream I imagined it to be, and that I felt I was finally fulfilling my “purpose” (whatever the hell that is). I wanted to be able to say I outran those lazy tendencies and suddenly became my most diligent, literature-loving, writerly self.

I can’t say all of those things. I can’t, and not because I hate it here or because I’m failing school (I swear I’m not, mom and dad), but because every single imagined fantasy of a faraway place or person or version of myself has turned out to be devilishly different from how I anticipated.

In the whirlwind that has been my life in Dublin thus far, I have learned not to expect anything. I don’t mean to have low expectations or to believe life is regularly going to leave a flaming bag of shit on your front porch; I mean to be content with whatever card you’re dealt, knowing that a fantastic adventure can be riddled with obstacles and setbacks but still be, you know, fantastic.

I have made friends and lost friends this year. First impressions are important, but consistency and loyalty is even more important. I have found that people are not good or bad, mean or nice; people are everything, and within us all, we contain everything. Good and bad. Mean and nice. The best we can all do is find those who treat us with the most kindness, the most goodness, and accept the smaller parts of them that can be a bit mean, a bit bad. Such is the contradictory nature of being human, and of loving other humans.

I’ve found that a trip filled with cancellations can be a hilariously fated learning experience.

That a relationship can be right, but the timing can be wrong.

That some friendships are meant to last a lifetime, while others are meant to last a term or two.

That reading the course material on time for the tutorial isn’t necessary to succeed in writing the final essay 😉

That making healthy choices such as going for runs or not eating nachos with your friends at 3am after a night out is actually, like, really hard.

That some days will still feel grey, even when the grass around you is greener than anywhere else. That’s just life, kiddo.

That clubbing gets old, but going to a pub with close friends for pints and chats never will.

That sleeping with friends will sound like a great idea, but almost certainly is not.

That a panic attack in the middle of a night club is not entirely horrific if you have someone with whom to stand outside amid the cool darkness of midnight, someone who holds you tightly until your breath steadies and the tears dry from your eyes and you begin to feel like there might be people out there in the world who will love you unconditionally, even the anxious parts.

That reading will always be relief, respite, relaxation, even when you’re demanded to analyse it. The analysing might be the best part.

That it’s never too late to challenge yourself.

That living so far from where you’re raised can feel exceedingly lonely at times, but you’ll never, in a million years, under any circumstances, ever regret it.