THE thing about living in a place you’re not from is that you always feel a little like you’re on holiday.
Even if you’re not. ‘Holiday’ might be too strong a word for it displaced is probably a more suitable description.
After a recent stint of reflection, I realised that I’ve told myself ‘I’m here now but I won’t be here for long’ every day since I left Cork or ‘the motherland’ as I like to call it.
That’s five years. I’m starting to think I should rephrase. I had always been privately aware of the bizarre ‘holiday/ displacement’ juxtaposition but it re-emerged when I engaged in a polite conversation with an elderly gent I met at a soiree.
We exchanged the usual pleasantries which eventually lead to the inevitable “And where are you from?”
“Galway” he said. “Oh really, and what are you doing down here?” I asked. “I live here.” “I thought you said you lived in Galway,” I said, quite aware that while he didn’t technically say he lived there, he definitely gave that impression.
“No, no, I’m from Galway, I live here.” “Oh... you’ve just moved here then have you?” I asked in a slightly more confused tone than necessary.
“No, no,” he said. “I’ve lived here for over 20 years.” The conversation petered out there and then.
I was more than tempted to snap “Stop telling people you’re from Galway then” but I managed to hold my cool.
Yes, technically the man is from Galway but to be perfectly fair, it is utterly misleading.
After becoming irrationally irate following the conversation I decided that hence forth when asked where I was from, I would say where I lived first and then, depending on the tone of the conversation, I would follow it up “but I’m from Cork”.
It was then I wondered if he’s felt like he’s been on holiday for the last 20 years.
Not like an actual vacation more like the end of a holiday when your flight has been cancelled and you find yourself stranded.
It’s an odd sort of feeling whereby you’re not quite sure why you’re here and you spend your days trying to figure out if you could potentially live in said stranded location if by chance your flight remains permanently cancelled.
Know what I mean? Coincidentally this particular issue arose only yesterday when conversing with the woman who claims to be my mother.
“What are you doing this weekend?” she asks. “Oh, I’m going home” I say. “Well now, your father and I are going out this Saturday night with.... (she then reams off a list of oldies her and papa hang ten with)”
“Yeaaahhh... what’s that got to do with me?,” I ask. “You said you were coming home so I was just letting you know we won’t be around.”
“Oh yeah, I meant I was going to Cork but to see the girls and stuff, I wasn’t actually planning on going home.”
“You said home, home is home, Cork is Cork. It’s totally different,” she says ever so slightly enraged at me not being totally specific.
“Cork is my home!” I exclaim right back. The person who is lucky enough to go out with me then very helpfully decides to join into the debate.
“You need to get over this Cork thing,” he says. “What Cork thing? I don’t have a Cork thing.” “You do have a Cork thing. It’s weird.” This got me to thinking again... do I have displacement issues? Surely not.
But maybe I’ll think about it at the weekend... when I’m home.