Well it brings me great joy to be writing on my laptop in my own bedroom in Ballwillwill, northern Ireland and i must say its been so good catching up with old friends and meeting a few new ones along the way as well.
Around 2 months ago i decided that it would be a wise thing for me to head on home for Christmas, for both financial and emotional reasons(i.e. i missed home).
Whilst talking to Niall (my brother) on the phone about this, a plan was hatched to surprise everyone and so the secret began!! I will say at this stage sorry to all of you who i may have told a few white lies too especially if they seemed quite detailed, oops
So after 2 months of trying to keep this a secret the time came for me to make my journey, it was a wednesday morning when i arrived in to Dublin airport, and despite stupid delta forgetting my luggage i was in good spirits! My brother picked me up from sprucefield and we headed over to the folks house:
Surprise 1: At the end of the lane i got into the boot of my brothers new alfa romeo gt and drove up to the house. my brother walked in and said something along the lines of "hi mum and dad look what i picked up at the end of the lane, i think its still alive just open up the boot there. watch it doesn't jump out!!" their faces were priceless!! so after getting a quick dinner we hit the road to:
Surprise 2: Erin, my sister. Niall walked into her house and said something along the lines of "hey Erin hows it going, hope you don't mind but i brought a friend along with me" at which point i stepped out from behind him. Her face was a mix of every emotion you could ever imagine fun times.
So after a quick visit with my cousin
dave( who is back blogging and for some reason quoting me in one of his entries??!!) we headed of to:
Surprise 3: the party that louise had so kindly organised for me. face of the night had to go to stu bothwell who couldn't understand why i was in the same room as him fun times!!
So iv been back home for nearly 2 weeks now and christmas has come and gone and new years is tomorrow. Iv had such a wonderful time since being back, iv loved meeting up with so many wonderful people, and being around a great family. Its kinda hard to put in the mixed feeling i have right now, because on one hand being home has made me realise two things
Firstly that on most levels four months is not a long time at all and that nothing really has changed. My friends are still here in norn iron and doing well and it has been easy just to get along side them again. So for that reason another four months in alabama should fly in and i shouldn't really miss all that much back home.
But on the other hand iv found myself saying on a number of occasions "well if i was in northern ireland this year i would be able to do this or that". I know that sounds really stupid considering iv been given this great opportunity to live in the states and meet some awesome people but sometimes you cant help it. I guess that its just one of those things, it is easy to look back and think "what would my life look like if i had chosen the other option?" but again i cant let myself dwell to long on things like that as there is no way to ever know. All i can do is rest in the knowledge that its all been part of Gods sovereign plan and i think id prefer to trust his judgement than my own flawed self.
