Oh Ireland, why must you make me so sad?

Wah! I'm just going to be a big baby about this one.

Earlier this semester, the director of the School of Education at APSU spoke to my instructional strategies class about some requirements we need to fulfill this semester. At this time, she also talked about a trip and some classes being offered in Ireland this summer, one of which could replace a class I need to take. And my favorite professor is going, too! But class or no class, I have always wanted to travel. Always. I have a charm bracelet that my mom gave me for Christmas one year with the globe on it because anyone who knows me, knows I want to see this world. And besides a great many states I visited as a kid with my family, I haven't really been anywhere; and I haven't been out of this country. My mom has. My dad has. Even my little sister has. But not me. I especially want to visit Europe and always Ireland in particular.

The only possible downside to my becoming a teacher is...how am I possibly going to travel on that salary?

When the director was speaking about this trip, I could feel my heart skipping beats inside my chest. My mind was racing with the idea of it all. A trip! To Ireland! With some awesome professors!

And the director made it seem so do-able. Sure, it would be a lot of money, but there is financial aid for that.

Wow!

But then it hit me like a ton of bricks...I can not go to a foreign country. I have two young children. I am old and tied down.

Sometimes I feel like my past mistakes will always haunt me. If this were ten years ago and I was a serious college student (as I am now), I could take this trip and have an experience of a lifetime with other adults. Learning. Fun. Freedom. Travel. Oh, bliss. But alas, there is just no possible way I could make it work.

Believe me, I've tried to think of some way, any way, to go.

But it just won't work. I'd like to say that I am an awesome enough mother to not even consider leaving my seven year old and my five year old with my husband or my mom, but I'm not. I would play out that scenerio for all it's worth if they could do it. But they can't, and I can't go, and I hear classmates talking about this amazing opportunity all the time. And it makes me so sad. (I'd miss my kids before I got on the plane...just for the record. And then I'd cry a lot all through the trip.)

The truth of the matter is this, though: I probably wouldn't ever have become a "serious student" if it wasn't for Michaela and Scotty. I might not have ever gotten focused, and I probably would not have set out on a path to become a teacher. And I wouldn't trade them for all the countries in the world anyway.

As we say around here, "it is what it is."

It still kinda stinks.