Being back in the Irish bars yesterday… felt like I went home.
It’s been emotional for me. It’s the only place where there was warmth. Aside from you… they took me in like family. They adopted me. That’s why I went to the Irish Bars back in 2020 and 2021. I got to the City and just wanted to BE here. And I didn’t know anyone.
I was waiting for my date times to arrive and was looking to pass time. I wanted to go back to where I belonged and so I went into the Irish Bars. The warmth from them… I always felt valued and loved, even as a stranger and for a short time. And that became my “thing” that I did. Papa James took me in and I was showered in acceptance for a time. And then I met you and your warmth and acceptance of me with your love surpassed anything I had known before.
And then everything happened as it did.
I went back to the bars yesterday for my research and it was a blast from my past. The hospitality and kindness hit me hard and I felt like I was home. The bar owner gave me a free drink. We talked and chatted and exchanged numbers. I was taken in immediately like I never left. Like I was kin returning home. Family. It’s something I’ve never known and I think, if I were to have a kin and a clan it would feel like that.
And so I memorized that feeling yesterday. I studied it and took it into me and I chose to take it with me and to keep it. The people who I was raised in, we have no culture. We had no pride. 100% of our pride was dumped on the accomplishments of Walter P. Chrysler and that was all we had. That was “the legacy.” That is all we had and it was cold and phony and fake. And it was arrogant and so… dirty. I wanted nothing to do with it.
And we weren’t allowed any other culture. And they taught me things about racism that were ugly, horrible lies that I wanted out of my head. They were such horrible people. And my mum gave me a culture that my other family shamed and abused us for. And I don’t know if my mum was grabbing onto just anything to believe in or if she really is/was Irish (I did the genealogy. We are, but…) I just wanted a belonging. And I don’t understand the burden and horror of people who struggle and battle and face racism every day. That was never my war so I can’t understand it. I was the outsider watching it, feeling sick by it, and hating it. Helping those who suffered under it by giving them friendship and kindness while I battled a different type of racism. The type where I was abused at times for *not* being racist. The type where I was abused for *not* supporting their racism. And that left me even more without a belonging. Neither in my own culture nor within the racist “culture” I was born into and also as an outsider of those who do suffer under it.
And yesterday and always, I feel like I belong with these warm, Irish people, and I choose them. And that is the difference. I get to choose my culture. And I love the kindness and family, and warmth, and the value of education, art, and music of the Irish because their ethics and their values match mine. But every time I gravitate toward them, I hear my brother screaming at me that I don’t belong with them. But he would have me belong nowhere. And I want something to believe in. I want a role model that I can live up to and pass on to my children.
And being back there yesterday did feel like I had gone home. It felt like I was home.
I ordered a pie and she asked, “Shepherd’s Pie?” I almost cried. I was raised on Shepherd’s Pie. I had to clarify. And I sat and talked with them for hours. It felt like all the time that had passed between 2020 and 2024 was no time at all. I was home again. And I walked away with a welcome and warm hugs from strangers who felt like family whereas I was raised among family who felt like strangers.
I asked her about music and art and she said to me, “Art and Music is how we connect. It’s how we grieve.” And she said, “During Covid the world was like, “Oh! The Arts are suffering…” She shook her head. “Not in Ireland they didn’t. We all bonded together to preserve and protect them and they flourished in Ireland during Covid.”
I don’t understand how or why I have this massive draw toward Ireland. I don’t know why a country I’ve never seen, a culture that was denied me has always felt like home to me. I don’t know how someone who was born and raised in hell in the middle of Central New York can feel so connected to something I’ve never had in my life. I just know that I do and when I’m among the Irish I feel Home.
I do know that denying myself this culture or its people causes me great mental harm and I’m ready to stop and just accept this despite not having the logic to understand it. I feel like I’ve been denied a culture. Have had to fight for one my whole life. It’s like when I say “I’m from New York” and people are like “No you’re not!” But when I’ve had this massive painful need to be here all my life, since I was 2, and I understand, love, and value New York City more than any other place in the world then it is my home. Does it really matter if it took me 40 years to get here? And I don’t want to deceive people or lie about where I’m from or being a native. But I always don’t want to defend my right to feel I belong here either. And I don’t want to split hairs over how and when I got here. Or if I’m meant to be here. It’s my story. And it is a painful one. It isn’t one I enjoy telling because, for me, it hurts so much to talk about how HARD it was TO GET HERE! New York City and Ireland are my Heart Home and I chose to be here. I fought to be here. And it’s not anyone’s fucking business if I was born somewhere else that prevented me from being where I truly belong.
Some people are fortunate enough to be given a culture that matches their Belonging. Some people are fortunate enough to be born into the City that matches their Soul. Others are not. Others had to bleed and fight to claim theirs and then had to war against those who denied their right to “be here.” And I’m tired of fighting and justifying my fight to people who never know this hell or struggle. I’m tired of fighting and justifying my story to people, strangers, who had the luxury of being born into a culture and a City of their dreams.
I’m Irish and I’m a New Yorker. I have been all my life. And when I deny either one of those truths about me, I feel like, once again, I have to explain or justify my right to be here or I have to explain myself to people who have no idea what it’s like living without a culture or a home or a clan.
Family, Culture, Home, Clan… These are things so many people who have them at birth take for granted. They have no idea what it’s like living without them. Having to choose one. Feeling “guilty” for not being “Authentically born to it.”
And that is what I learned yesterday about me. It isn’t fake or phony. It’s Authentically Me. And I had to fight and bleed to earn my right to claim it. So if I say she is mine and I am hers, then fuck it. I am. Fuck my brother.
I was tired of being denied my Belonging and my Home.
These are all the things in my head this morning. So yeah… It was really good to be Home. And I think… I definitely need to go back a few times a week.