It never gets old

It feels normal to be 'good' now and I'm not sure the feeling of thankfulness for it will ever get old. In fact I never want it to. A friend recently asked me "how have you been?!" and I genuinely could only think to say "I'm amazing." After all, I am living my dream and I must not forget it.

first day of teaching Sept 26, 2025!

I'm not making great money and indulging in all of Madrid's finest restaurants. Im not working in my 'dream' job or so sure about my future that it doesn’t worry me most days. Im not in love, and haven’t been since I got out of my 5 year relationship almost a year and a half ago. I'm not really financially stable and run between two jobs throughout the week and haven't had time to put a picture in the frame I bought three months ago (oops). I'm not immune to mental struggles and still suffer through anxiety and forever lingering touches of depression. But I am settling into my new life quite nicely, with new friends and coffee shops that are also book shops, which is a new found love, and I feel like I fit perfectly into my new neighborhood. I like to think I’m making my family and friends back home proud and that adds even more value to the sacrifice of being away from them. I get to teach Spanish children my native language everyday and they get excited when I walk in the room and I never leave a class without getting at least one hug and if anything I’m just another person in their life that is kind to them.

I've been living in Madrid for almost four months! I started off my journey here in a shared Air bnb with random people rotating in and out, sharing a bed with my now best friend/roommate, all while apartment hunting up and down the streets of Madrid. Making my way through Spanish bureaucracy and government paper work. I've met people who I'm sure will be life long friends. I've made so many memories. I swear I say I've found my favorite bar or café or street in all of Madrid everyday.

*one* of my favorite streets! took this two days after I arrived in Madrid coincidentally in the neighborhood I would soon find my apartment in :)

Before deciding to move here I sat at the kitchen table of my grandparents house in Waterford, Ireland toddling with the idea. I looked at my grandmother and said, "the only reason I wouldn't do it is because I'm too scared." She nodded, half smiled and made that noise she makes from the side of her mouth, almost to say "I dunnooo Niamh," with her chin rested in the palm of her hand. The stillness of her response was my answer. I could either go home and put off my dream of living in Europe further into the future or I could live it now..."I'm already a long way from home so why not keep going," I thought.

I truly believe this life is pieced together by experience, and experience only. It curates what we take with us into different eras of our lives. And as for the meaning of "experience", there is endless possibilities. Experience is doing things wildly out of your comfort zone, and settling into them. Experience is taking a job in your field of study, living in the city you grew up in with long time friends, investing in your future by rigorously studying for the MCAT for months on end (Hi KK). Experience is not knowing where or what or how you are going to do what you want to do but figuring it out anyways. Experience is realizing you cannot go to the grocery store and fill your cart to the absolute brim and then walk home alone! There is so many ways to do it, and no correct way. How frightful, and freeing! The only reason I'm where I am at this very moment is because of the agony and happiness and desperation and joy and mercy and relationships and places that I've experienced. And I'm so proud of the person I've proved to be this year and of the experiences I get to speak about when I am older. Especially when I urge my own children to move to some unknown place and learn a foreign language :)))

On December 30th, 2025 I couldn’t help but hold back tears on my flight out of Boston. I came and went yet again. I went home for Christmas and spent precious time with my friends and family and then I was off again. There wasn't enough time, as there never is.

a few pieces of my heart at home in Boston (at The Dubliner of course)

Being home this time around, I think I truly realized life resumes without me. Not in the way where I feel like I’m not missed or thought about by my friend’s, family, etc. -- as they make sure to send me an abundance of love and support every single day across the ocean. But in the sense that everything that makes home home continues, whether I’m there or not. MY experience in Boston is paused and unpaused every time I come home. But for the people I truly adore that still live there, it just keeps going. As does my experience once I return to Madrid. I can’t be angry with the way time carries on but I also can’t help but feel like I’m at the mercy of it, and it's very unforgiving. Even still, I think those tears as I flew out of Boston Logan were just my way of processing this realization, and of already missing the people I love and wishing I could bring them everyyyywhere with me. Because, as I said, it just wasn't enough time, and it never will be. So you just keep going!

My heart was incredibly heavy and I felt a bit selfish leaving, because as my moms eyes welled up with tears and she put her hands over her face when I told her I think I'm going to stay in Madrid for another year, I still felt secure in my decision. I don't know what pulls me away from home exactly, of course the experience of new things, but actually moving away from home is a different story. It causes a lot of pain but I guess that's just another experience to look to. The experience of pain only makes us notice pleasure after all.

Several people have commented to me lately how unbelievable the growth I've accomplished this year is. Of course being home brings you down that rabbit hole of looking through old keepsakes, journals, photos -- all that the 'new years nostalgia' of January 1st brings. As I was sifting through it all I found a note I wrote and put in a 'prayer box' --- "I'll look back on myself one day and be so glad I believed I could overcome," I wrote this about a year and a half ago sometime in September 2024. Probably a variation of something I saw on Pinterest and wanted to write down. I think it wholeheartedly sums up my 2025. I am so glad I overcame and I cannot even imagine in my wildest dreams what I will come up with for 2026.

I'm good. Things are good even when they're shitty, because I still carry with me everything I have overcome. And that will never get old.