Good Riddance

These was reposted in light of some information and because the writer is of a slightly vindictive personality type.
[Note: the names have been changed as a courtesy to those in question]

It is a funny old world. Sometimes you just have to step back and laugh. I will apologize in advance for the fact that this post will seem of a gloomy nature and it may appear that I am wallowing in my own self pity at certain points. For this I am sorry.

I was sitting in the arrival area of the Dublin Airport at 10:25 on a very rainy Sunday, waiting for the girl who had brought a new and unique meaning to my life in the last several months. An hour later Sadie still wasn’t there and I was beginning to wonder if this whole things was an elaborate hoax and I had come to Dublin for not when I heard it from behind me; “Cough.” And there she was, Sadie, standing there with a shy but bright smile. I leapt and embraced her. This was the moment I had dreamt of for a long time and I made the most of it I squeezed her as tight as I could. “Okay! Okay!” She said with a smile. We sat in front of the Airport laughing and randomly hugging each other and holding each other and touched each other’s faces to take in the fact that we were both real. It was a moment of true happiness and excitement for both of us.

On the bus ride we just kept smiling. She pulled out a ton of Israeli candy for me to try and I gave her snus, my Swedish snuff. “It burns!” she said. “”Ack!” and spit it out. We checked into the Hostel and walk around Dublin. I was so excited about Sadie that I had trouble even paying attention to the fact that I was in Europe for the first time. As we walked she held my hand so tight that her finger nails actually broke the skin. In the center of the city we embraced each other with a hug that made everything feel right. We were happy.

This was exactly how it had been in my imagination and I was ecstatic that things were going so well. We walked around Dublin for about an hour and a half but were so exhausted from our flights that we decided to go back to the hostel and sleep. I couldn’t sleep. We held each other and even though she was able to fall asleep soundly I was so happy to finally be able to hold her and look at her that that was all I did.

We walked around Dublin some more looking for a place to eat. “This place looks just like Amsterdam,” Sadie said with slight disappointment in her voice. “Why do all European cities look the same?”

I was beyond exhausted having not slept in over twenty six hours and was starving to boot. We found a little Cantonese restaurant and enjoyed what was essentially our first date. Now my dear reader I know that so far the post has been basically comprised of our emotions and what I we were feeling, but that is truly all I was aware of at that point.

Now I must admit I was very romantically interested in Sadie. She was very romantically interested in me to. We had both bared our souls to each other and knew every little detail of each other’s lives. That being said I knew it would be a strain for us to make something really work in such a short period of time and I was content to just be good friends if things worked out that way.

Saying Sadie is a heavy sleeper is an understatement. Sadie is a cat. She needs five to six naps a day or else she will not have enough energy for her mid day snooze. So it was my job to start the day every day. But I was unable to the next morning. When our alarm clock went off Sadie turned it off and immediately put her arms around me and went to back sleep. I couldn’t turn down this so we stayed in bed for another hour and a half.

When we did finally get around we made our way to Trinity College to see the book of Kells. The book of Kells is an ancient Irish biblical manuscript that is lauded for its beautiful imagery. So after paying the nine euro entrance fee we made our way in and took glee in all the Irish artifacts around us. But what captivated us more was the Long Room. This is the historical library of Trinity College that is now serves as a tourist attraction. The place is huge. I mean really really big. To say the walls are lined with books is like saying that Scotland is a couple stones in it. Every inch of the library has a book and the walk way is full of busts of influential Irish and English writers. Sadie was noticeably moved. “It is so big” she said. “I know.”

We then traversed the vast winding streets of Dublin in search of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Irish for some reason do not believe in street signs and seem to assume that if you are in Ireland you will know where you are. So we got a little lost. When we did get to St. Patrick’s Cathedral were slightly shocked. The entire historical religious landmark had been turned into a giant gift shop with an entrance fee. This is not an exaggeration where people once prayed to various saints now stood shelves of “Irish Pride” t-shirts. But Sadie still seemed moved to be in a church. It is a very funny thing about Sadie that even though she is Jewish she gets very quiet and in awe of churches.

We ate lunch and made our way to the Guinness Brewery which was on the other side of the city. We asked a group of Americans, which as Sadie later comment were very homosexual and I could not fault her observation, for directions. “Hmm that is a bit of a walk from here, but we have these tour tickets that we are done with you can use,” said one of the Americans. “It is expired but the drivers never look at the tickets.” He was right and we got on the bus sat in the back listening to the sound of a prerecording telling us the history of every building we passed.

Sadie was acting a little moody and I understood. It would have been ignorant of me to assume that she was going to just be walking on sunshine the whole trip. We all go through emotional phases which come and go without and real rhyme nor reason and Sadie had just undergone an emotional overload. So I gave her her space and we explored the obnoxiously Willie Wonka like Guinness tour.

We went back to the bus which had a different driver. I flashed him my ticket and attempted to walk to the back when he stopped me. “Show me your ticket again,” he said. I obliged. “This ticket is expired. You’ll need to pay fifteen Euros for another. The shocked look on Sadie’s face was priceless. So instead we walked a half an hour in the rain to the hostel. As we walked I attempted to hold Sadie’s hand. She jerked her hand back as though I had just offered her veal (Sadie is a vegetarian). “I just don’t like physical contact,” she said. This was a bit of a blow to me, not that she didn’t want to hold my hand, but her excuse. Judging by how she had been up until that point and all she had had told me, the evidence pointed to the contrary.

Okay so I was a little shaken by this. I have an odd knack of picking up on people’s moods. Not their obvious moods but what they are really feeling. And I could tell something was really not right. So we walk in uncomfortable silence. I was lost in my thought wondering what was going on with Sadie and became the expressionless entity I always become whilst dealing with gloom. Sadie went off to shop and I went back to the hostel. When Sadie got back she acted exactly as she had done the day before and I was naively relieved that that was just a momentarily fluke and everything was good with us. We sat in the hostel and watched the British comedy Black Books. Even though she said she didn’t like it she kept laughing out loud.

We went to a sushi restaurant to eat. Sadie tried Saki for the first time and I was appalled that it was served cold. Towards the end Sadie went outside to smoke and I went with her. “I’d hold your hand,” I said half sarcastically, “but I know you don’t like physical contact.” “It isn’t that,” she said. “I would feel bad because of Zeb.” I felt like someone had slapped me in the face. Zeb was Sadie’s friend back home who she use to date but he cut it off when he found out she was going to Ireland with an American she had never met. They stayed good friends but I always felt uncomfortable about it because I knew he was trying desperately hard to rekindle things with them, and hated me. He would do childish things like make ultimatums that it was either the trip to Ireland or him. Being told that they were back together in such a sudden cold and indirect way shocked me to the very bone.
I politely excused myself to the restroom and silently screamed. I came back and tried desperately to act as though nothing had just happened and that I was still the same old happy go luck Ryan but failed miserably. We went to a bar and Sadie asked me what was wrong. “Why didn’t you tell me you were dating Zeb?” I asked. “I did” she replied. “No you didn’t,” I retorted “I would remember that.” “Well I am not putting a label on it because I want to see where things go here.” So I was given back brief glimpse of false hope.

Sadie and I had played a game online where we would post back and forth things we were thankful for until we got to one hundred. Our goal was to be as thankful for life as possible. On her last thanks, and the final thanks, Sadie posted “Falling in love with you.” I told her how moved I was but that we should avoid that subject until Ireland, because things that I might say would lose all their meaning if not said face to face. I printed out the “thanks” posts having ornately decorated the pages, framed it and wrote “I love you Sadie” on the back.

“Sadie” I said, “I love you.” She smiled at me. “Would you like your gift?” I asked. “I have been dying to see it” she said. As she opened it the guitarist in the bar started playing Wonderwall. She opened, put her hand over her mouth, looked at me, and gave me the biggest hug. “This gift is perfect!” she proclaimed. “I have never seen anything that is so me. Haha I seriously considered doing the same for you” she said with a look of genuine joy. “Thank you Ryan.”
We walked to the Ha’ Penny bridge and then went to another pub. As we walked I stopped her. “Watch your step, condom” I said pointing it out. She laughed so hard, and made the comment the running joke for the rest of the trip. As we sat in the pub she drank two shots and I sipped on an orange juice and vodka. “List me off all the fifty states” she said. “Can you?” “It is really hard. I mean I know them all, but it is difficult to remember all of them,” I said. And so she filmed me getting to thirty three states before giving up.

On the way back to the hostel she was a little drunk. The city center was completely disserted except for us and a couple walking past us. The woman was wearing a tiny red clubbing dress. “She must be so cold!” Sadie exclaimed. “Sadie!” I said trying to stop her from making any serious faux pas. “No look at it, it is soooo tiny. In Israel we call those baby dolls.” I took her back to the hostel which was also home to a nightclub. “Ryan do you want to go to the nightclub,” Sadie asked in a slightly intoxicated state. I explained that we needed to wake up early in the morning to go to Killarney and that she would hate me in the morning. I tucked her in and went to sleep.

In the morning I woke up an hour before the alarm clock. I went out and made her a cup of coffee (rather badly). As I came back she began to stir. “I smell coffee.” “Yes” I replied. “I thought you could use a pick me up.” She sipped it and then went and made her own but told me how touched she was that I was taking care of her.

We had a misadventure getting to the train station. Online it said that Calleny and Heuston station had trains to Killarney. We took a taxi to Calleny, when we got there and asked for our tickets we received a look of condescension and were informed that a train to Killarney was only at the Hueston Station. Everybody knew that. So we took a tram to Heuston and spent three and a half hours on the train talking taking picture and playing games. Sadie has the unusual talent of being able to be given any list of fifty objects read it for five minutes and recite it back word for word backwards and forwards. The hardest part of the exercise was thinking of fifty objects to write down.

Killarney is a beautiful city. Dublin is a tourist haven and looks just like ny other city but when you arrive in Killarney you arrive in Ireland. The second we got off the train we commented on this. We went to the new hostel which had a cozy atmosphere and was far nicer than the last. I was starving and we walked around trying to find a restaurant and a Claddagh ring for Sadie who fell in love with the Claddagh when I first introduced it to her and told her of its meaning. We looked at some overpriced rings and I then took her to a pub restaurant. She was quite and miserable the whole time because I brought her to a restraunt without consulting her that had no food for her. This made eating an excruciating experience. We then went and I bought her a pizza (a meal was part of my forfeit for her being able to recite fifty words front to back), and ate in the hostel. We spent the night in a little pub and truly enjoyed ourselves. Sadie asked me to tell her what I thought of her so I described everything I had percieved of her nature. "Close friends who have known me for years don't even pick up on those things you said" she said. Then she did the same for me and I was startled by the level of insite she had in me. She picked up on levels of detail that only I was ever aware of. It was a good night.

This being said I still kept noticing since the second day an oddness in her. She kept getting really quiet and acting like she was silently annoyed by me. Like an odd coldness and distance which stung as we had contacted so much up until Ireland. The next day we got thoroughly lost trying to find Killarney national park in the rain while carrying picnic supplies in the rain. So we went back to the hostel. I had asked her in a playful “oh comfort me” kind of way on one of the times she had been acting distant towards me “Will you miss me when this is over?” She replied “I don’t know.” This was a complete one eighty from before when she told me that she just knew she would be an emotional wreck when I left.

So as we ate I asked her if I was different than she expected me to be. She told me that basically I was exactly the same except that I have a slightly feminine personality. This is a fact that I am well aware of and had accepted so that bugged me little. I asked her if I was different in real life than on the phone and she said no, that I was exactly the same. We got to the root of the matter and she explained that her coldness towards me was because she could not mentally connect the real me to the internet me. As she talked I came to the realization that nothing would happen between us and spent an hour lying on the bed being depressed. She was noticeably annoyed and became gloomy herself. We decided to spend some time apart and went shopping on our own.

I was personally crushed by this revelation. I had just known that things would workout between us and now she was acting towards me, as she said, like I was a completely new person in her life whom she didn’t know. In a fit of frustration I turned to the one thing that always gets me through personal grief and entered a musical instrument store. On a whim I bought a guitar and an Irish flute which I later found out was not a wise move.

When Sadie got back things seemed better, but alas they were far from it. We went to get dinner and once again silence… a cold quietness with no eye contact. The most irritating part was that her phone kept getting text messages and I was left feeling like there were many other people she would rather be talking to at that moment. I once again got depressed and this time on our way home when she asked me what was wrong I told her.

“Sadie, I can accept the fact that you have no romantic feelings for me but I get the sense that you only kind of like me as a friend.” This led into a long painful conversation with her explaining to me that I will never see her again after this trip and that we will essential be strangers… but at least we have a story to tell people. Emotional wreck. Yes that nicely sums up what this did to me. Especially when she said, “well at least we only have two more days of this.” I was suddenly taken aback. “But I’m still going to Switzerland with you?” Her look said it all. “Can I just have one day with you so I can get my bearings?” No. “Will you wait for me after my flight?” No. I was to be alone in a country I had never been to with no plan and a broken heart. She seemed to take it all well and really didn’t show any emotions other than a friendly smile, while I bawled.

I went to drown my sorrows in the sound of my guitar, sitting alone outside the hostel. As I played Hallelujah a drunk Irishman came out smoking a fag. With the cigarette in his mouth he started to dance. The man told me that Hallelujah was the song to be put on his grave. He was drunk out of his mind. He was a forty two year old former dentist who looked like he was fifty five and had just gotten out of rehab and ranted about how he hated alcoholics who do not admit that they are alcoholics. He told me how money never brought him happiness and how he had achieved all he wanted in life. He brought me inside and made me play for everyone until we were told to stop than he made me play for him and a young Check dancer named Nadia. He explained to Nadia how much he hated the Polish.

The most painful part of the night was what he said as I was going to bed for no explained reason. “Brian, you’re nineteen. You’re at your sexual peak. At your age if you fall in love with a girl and lose her you will compare all the girls that come after to her for the rest of your life. So when you find that girl you love, don’t let her go.” I tried to go to sleep but had a panic attack. Sadie held my hand and comforted me. I thought maybe she was having a change of heart but I was soon to enter hell.

I had hoped that despite everything she would realize that I did truly care for her and would try to make our last day a happy one. Instead I got the coldness in an extreme that I didn’t even no possible. Our entire trip to the Ring of Kerry she said nothing and wouldn’t look at me. I felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest. We hid our emotions in polite conversation with Nadia and a Kiwi named Yuna. The four hour trip back to Dublin was marked by her saying literally nothing to me and walking to the other side of the train. I sat listening to Hallelujah and heard a deeper meaning in its words than I had ever known. When we finally got off the train she still said nothing to me. “Sadie, why are you doing this?” “Why am I doing what?!” she replied. “Just tell me what is wrong!” “Stop it,” she retorted. “Sadie you are killing me. What is the problem?” “I hate this trip” she said. “It is not healthy for me. I want it to be over.” I felt like I had just been kicked again. “Okay I don’t hate this trip that wasn’t right to say” she said. “Is it because of me” I asked. “Yes” she said. Okay if there were any moment in my life I really felt like ending my misery that was it. “I mean no… erg. I don’t hate you Ryan.” "After everything we have been through it is going to end like this" I asked. "Shit happens" she said.

Later that night I freaked out even more when I went to use my computer and found that I had spent far more than I had expected and the guitar didn’t help. Then I found out my mom had health problems and that they had just spent three grand on new transmission for the car. So I had to ask my grandparents for money. For which I am truly thankful.

The next morning Sadie told me that she wanted to leave in a taxi on her own. I voiced once again how scared and upset I was about being stuck in Zurich with no plan and no contacts. “It will be an experience,” she said. “Getting shot is an experience. Being raped is an experience” I replied. “Sadie, even though I am bitter about this I still do care about you.” She said nothing. I took her to the taxi and gave her a hug. “Have a good life” I said. She said nothing and without looking back went into the taxi and walked out of my life. I made my way an hour later to the airport.

Getting off the plane I thought “you know what this might work out.” I found out that Zurich station has no general shuttle service, taxi drivers don’t know what hostels are, all the hostels were booked, and that nobody travelling to Zurich goes their without a plan. This is not a backpacker’s town. So biting the bullet I bought a ticket to Vienna and am now sitting in a Starbucks waiting for my train and hoping tomorrow is a better day.
Yours truly,
Ryan Messer