Living in the Now is very difficult

This is going to be a very short (for me) post. Hah, how many times have I written that? It’s a Tuesday night, I’ve spent all day driving around Donegal, too much of that time on single lane roads. I honestly don’t know how I do it. It’s almost like someone takes over for me when I myself go catatonic with fear and before I know it, I’ve come out of that horrible road and am on to a more “normal” one.

And the scenery in Donegal is breathtaking, even just glimpsing it now and then when I dare take my eyes off the road. Softly rolling hills, the Kerry green of fields lined with the darker green of hedges. Neat white cottages, sometimes stone. Sheep and cows. The sea in the distance. I was so thankful that the expensive Garmin that I rented from Avis (a story in itself, will be told sometime soon in another post) finally worked today. There is no way I could have navigated AND driven without the soothing British voice telling me calmly where and when to turn.

It’s quite amazing for a North American to think that it takes over an hour to go 40 miles but that’s Ireland. You just have to build the time into your journey. Of course it means that I have spent an entire day going probably less than the distance from Sierra Vista to Phoenix, which takes 2 hours max. Still, I did manage to stop for a very nice lunch in a hotel in Dunfanaghy, photographed two good sized cemeteries for my cemetery project, got the car re-filled with petrol way before the “empty” sign may have come on and, most importantly made it back to the cottage in one piece.

I haven’t described the cottage. I will do that, perhaps tomorrow night. Tonight I have once again been deeply involved in arranging COVID tests for my return to England. Yep, have to go through just about the same process I had to in the US to go to England in the first place. My trip to Helsinki meant that I can’t claim to have remained in the UK “bubble” (Ireland is included in the bubble for testing purposes) for 10 days. So, hello testing. Ironic that the UK has announced that come Oct 4th they will no longer require COVID tests to get into the country, catching up with most of the EU. Mind you, several countries in the EU are currently not allowing any US residents into their country, vaccinated or not. Such a mess.

And what did I mean by the title of this blog? Well, I keep hoping that I can stop worrying about what I need to do in the future and just relax and enjoy today. Just hasn’t happened a lot so far. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a wonderful trip, I have connected with new people, seen beautiful things, and enjoyed myself. But it’s not been the kind of relaxing trip where I can sit back and assume everything’s been taken care of. My fault of course, I made this a very complicated trip by feeling I had to cram so much into it—visiting relatives, seeing things I’d not seen before but wanted to, feeling that I had to get as many cemeteries photographed as I could—all because of 2020.

But as of tonight, I really can’t do anything more until Thursday and my pre-flight COVID test here in Ireland. Tomorrow “could” be a relaxing day if I let it be. No driving on one-lane roads, there’s a cemetery just down the road that I could do, I could enjoy lunch here in Donegal Town which has some very good restaurants.

Sounds like a good plan for a very tired person.