by S. L. Finlay
It annoyed me that it was my education and that I was paying for it but that there were these gate keepers. I did as they insisted on anyway. We agreed on a time for the phone call and spoke on the phone.
The conversation was obviously one of the woman on the other end ticking boxes and making sure everything she needed to know was answered. I didn't like operating from a script, but if this was what she was doing I was cool with that.
"Why do you want to change major?" She asked me in the monotone voice of someone reading the question rather than really asking it.
"I want to change because during my semester abroad I have found a new passion for creative writing." I told her.
"And you're aware that changing your major now could impact your law career, as you stated you were perusing in your college application?" She asked.
The question annoyed me even more than the first one had. "Yes, I am aware. I am allowed to have a career change too."
The eye roll down the line was audible. I decided to ignore it though and kept my cool. This situation was infuriating me by now and I simply wanted it to be over.
Several more questions were asked before the woman told me she would need to take everything I had told her into consideration, in addition to what she already had there on my file before making a decision.
"How long should that take?" I asked, even though I was sure she had already decided to not let me change my major.
There was the sound of the woman clearing her throat down the line before she told me, "At least a month. Maybe two."
"Seriously?" I asked, "But I need to know now."
"Why do you need to know now?" She asked, her voice telling me that she thought my response was as stupid as she had thought my previous responses to her questions were.
"Because, then I can plan." I told her, trying to keep the 'dah' tone out of my voice as I was already tired of talking to this person.
There was silence down the phone before the woman asked me, "Plan what? You will either study law as you were admitted to study it or your major will be changed and you can study creative writing. Either way you are still a student at our school."
"Okay." I relented. "Sure."
"So that was everything?" She asked.
"It's going to have to be." I told her.
"Good. Goodbye for now then." She told me before hanging up the call.
After the phone call, I had a bunch of questions for myself which I needed answered. I knew I hadn't been talking about planning my education back home in America when I had spoken to her, I was referring to a different kind of planning. A kind of planning I had been ignoring until then.
I wanted to stay here where I was happy and comfortable. I had been so unhappy in the states. I was studying something I wasn't interested in, I didn't have very many friends, my family put pressure onto me to perform.
And, as silly as it was to admit, I was falling pretty hard for this professor. If I went home now, I wouldn't find another guy quite like this.
I normally considered myself to be pretty open minded, although the daddy stuff had thrown me in the beginning, I had kept going with it because it made him happy. Then after a while, it had started to turn me on too, and also to just make sense in our relationship.
When you're happy, and comfortable, you don't really want to move across oceans. When you're happy and comfortable you don't really want to have to deal with a lot of uncomfortable things that make you unhappy anymore. If I was honest, there were plenty of things that used to make me feel uncomfortable, only I hadn't realised it until I was finally in a relationship that made me happy.
So I left it with my college back home. I simply ignored the whole thing for as long as I could.
Which only wound up being about two days.
Then I got an email telling me I couldn't change my major. I would need to return to the US and be a lawyer still, only, it wasn't what I wanted in life. I still wasn't being completely honest with myself about what I did want though, but it wasn't this.
CHAPTER NINE
Daddy and I continued with our relationship in sips and shots and we were both smitten in no time at all. We avoided talking about my leaving, and I even started to catch myself making plans with him into the future, a future that wouldn't fit with my current studying plans.
Daddy would just look at me funny when I said these things, rather than tell me that those time lines didn't work: that I would be back in the states by the time certain dates came around.
I talked about St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, I talked about spending summers together along the coast (Galway was already on the coast and had some beautiful - if very cold - beaches). I talked to him about my staying longer without actually acknowledging that I couldn't. I just dreamed, because it was all that I could do.
Then one day I told him that I didn't really want this relationship of sips and shots anymore, hell, I didn't even want to go back to America and study law when my time here was up. That was something we both already knew. I simply didn't want my time to be up.
When I told him, it was mid-way through a break down I was having in my kitchen. The break down was no fun, and it wasn't one either of us wanted or had planned to happen, but it was happening none the less.
When I burst out that this was not what I wanted, Daddy simply looked me in the eye and told me, "I was wondering how long it would take for you to say that."
"What?" I asked, confused.
"I was wondering how long it would take for you to realise that you didn't want to go back home and study law." He told me.
I stared at him, incredulous. I just had nothing to say to him.
"Well?" He asked.
"I just, I feel like I am doing what everyone else wants me to do and I don't want to have to do that anymore." I told him as he nodded along to my words. "I just, want to do things for me. I want to live my life for me rather than for my family, or my college, or whatever."
"Okay." He told me, "That's normal. So what are you going to do about it?"
I was frustrated at his words, just what did he mean what was I going to do about it? I didn't know what I was going to do about it! I just knew I couldn't live like this anymore.
"What do you mean 'what am I going to do about it'?" I asked, frustrated.
"I mean, if you don't like it, only you can change it. It is your life, after all." He told me.
I cocked my head to the side and thought about what he had just told me while staring into the space between us. David just shrugged and got back to tidying the kitchen. My temper-tantrum was over, I was not in a position to complain any longer, and he wasn't too concerned about my previous complaints right now either. He was just going to do what he had to do in the kitchen.
After a few moments, I realised how small this stuff was and how stupid I was being, then I felt a little ashamed of myself.
"I'm not sure." I told him, gathering myself. "Maybe I should take some time to think about this."
David stopped what he was doing and gave me a single nod. I returned it then excused myself. I had plenty to think about at the moment and really needed time to myself to mull it all over. I had to think about this weird secret relationship I had gotten myself into, about my leaving, about what I would be going back to in the states.
I knew I wanted to stay here with David and just study creative writing, but that was a knee-jerk reaction, and not a solution to any of my problems at all.
I still had a family in the US and friends, I still had responsibilities to my community and I had worked hard to get where I was - even as I wasn't anywhere special in particular - to walk away from everything.
People at home would just think I did it all for a man anyway, chalking my running away to Ireland up as a 'phase' or something I had purely done to keep what should have been a short-term fling going.
The more time I spent with David though, the less it felt like just a fling. At our cores, we were very similar. We had similar value
s and outlooks, even if externally we were packaged differently being from different places in life, different ages and different cultures.
He made me laugh, as the romantic comedies say, but there was also more than that going on. He bought many of the fantasies I had had about men and relationships to life in a way I hadn't thought possible.
As a woman in the twenty-first century, I had been bought up with fairy tales and stories with happily ever afters alongside cynical beliefs of my elders that love doesn't last, or isn't real. Or at least that it's different to the stories we tell ourselves.
It is true that love is different to stories, love is better than our stories could ever imagine it to be. When you're with the person who is really meant for you, it isn't rainbows and butterflies all the time but a warm contentment, something that you don't resist against, but something you resist against being told what to do about.
Or at least that was what I was doing in my situation that was what was true of my relationship with David.
I left David's house and wandered down to the sea side. I went for a long, long walk along the beach and thought about all of my problems as I walked in one direction: about how nothing was working right now, and how everything was a mess.
Then, when I walked back I thought about all of the things I wanted and how I could have them. It wasn't like there was a famine or a war in either country, there wasn't anything really big stopping me from moving around, or getting an education, or telling someone that I loved them.
I did love him, and I had never told him that.
What did I want anyway? I thought as I walked back along the coast. When I stopped resisting it because of what I thought I should do, or what I knew others thought I should do, or the expectations from anyone at all, the answer came to me so quickly and so painlessly it seemed stupid that I had ever thought about it any other way.
David was right, I needed to take action when I had problems in life and I knew exactly what I was going to do about it.
CHAPTER TEN
I had been answering the wrong questions I realised from my walking up and down the coast, toes covered in sand. By the time I got back to the house I shared with several other students, I had a plan.
I began by spewing all of the thoughts I had onto paper. I knew that it wasn't a good idea to start taking action right away. If nothing else, studying pre-law in the states had taught me that logic and reason win arguments, not emotion.
After doing that, I started picking out things and making actionable steps. I didn't have forever to take life by the horns. Life is so short and I wouldn't let myself screw this up. Even though it was my life and it was up to me to make things happen, I still felt the burden of responsibility here. I had to at least make it look like I knew what I was doing, and that I could be trusted to run my own life without anyone's interference.
I was well aware that my wealthy parents could easily disinherit me and I couldn't let that happen. I wasn't going to do anything to upset them either. When I did approach them with big scary ideas, I would do so in a way that framed the ideas in a positive light. They would have no reason to turn me away.
Researching took a long time. I spent hours poring over different websites. Even as I had some idea where to start, I still felt like I was a bit of a mess of ideas (even with all the beach walking and spewing ideas onto paper I had done).
It was past midnight when I finally went to bed. I did promise myself though that I would get some work underway the following day. I had done all the researching and reading I could manage for now. It was time for me to leap into action the following day, and this time I wasn't going to be as willing to take a no as I had been when my university refused to let me switch majors.
That night I struggled to get to sleep before finally falling asleep sometime in the pre-dawn hours and then waking up early the following day.
I had classes in the afternoon but with the morning free, I made a bunch of phone calls and sent off some emails. On my phone was a text message from David which I dutifully ignored as I went back to executing my grand plans.
By lunchtime, I had the good news I wanted to share with David. I texted him to ask if he could meet me after classes this afternoon. He agreed without asking me what for and I went to class.
As distracted as I was, I still managed to get all the work I needed to do done taking notes and arranging a meeting - studies related this time - with a professor before running off to the quiet pub that no-one else on campus went to where I would be meeting David.
When I walked in I saw him ordering drinks at the bar. He had already ordered mine even though I wasn't there yet and when he saw me his expression shifted. He went from looking tired after a long day at work to looking happy to see me. It was sweet to know that I made him feel that way and bought a smile to my own face.
I swooped in for a kiss at the bar, and he kissed me right back which shocked me for a moment as we normally didn't show affection in public and I wasn't used to it.
Without missing a beat, David broke the kiss and motioned for us to sit near one of the windows. I followed him over to the window and we sat together and chatted about our days for a bit until he asked me before taking a sip of his beer, "What did you want to meet me for?"
I took a deep breath and felt the butterflies rising inside my tummy. I imagined myself eating all of them down again before telling him, "I am making choices. Doing things now, rather than just letting the whole thing with changing my major take over."
"That sounds good." He told me, not really paying too much attention as he surveyed the bar. I imagined he was looking to see if anyone from the university was there.
"What happens if you're caught dating a student anyway?" I asked David, wanting to know why our relationship had become such a secret anyway. I didn't want it to be, I wanted to tell everyone that I was with this man who I adored and thought so highly of, but couldn't. This was disappointing, and it hurt.
"Um." David screwed up his face a little and looked at me before confessing, "I'm not sure, actually."
"No-one's ever told you?" I asked.
David was shaking his head, "Guess no-one thought they had to."
"So, in theory, nothing bad could happen if your bosses found out?" I asked, feeling a little silly I had been so upset about the possibility of us being found out that I hadn't told anyone - not even Sammy, although she had figured it out on her own and would smugly smile as she asked me how Creative Writing classes were going.
"No. That doesn't mean nothing bad will happen, it just means I don't know what would happen." David said.
I had found while I was in Ireland, that rules didn't matter too much to the Irish. They didn't much care for them, and were not interested in rules or rule makers as much as we were in the states. Actually, the Irish really hated rules and rule makers. They didn't have much respect for police and had zero respect for their politicians. Irish people neither cared, nor wanted to be under any rules that didn't suit them.
I told David this - that no-one here cared about rules, and we would probably be fine, so when could we start meeting at normal pubs and behaving like a normal couple? - and he sighed before telling me that he didn't think that was the case. That he still wanted to be on the safe side.
"Why does it matter?" I asked, "If you really weren't allowed to date students, they would have told you. If it's a rule, it's not a secret. That girl was probably just being a bitch."
David shook his head at me. I rarely swore in front of him (my mother's obsession with politeness did stick with me in my relationship with David even if I disregarded it everywhere else).
"That's not the point. Anyway, aren't you leaving soon?" He shot back at me.
Stalemate.
I stared at him and he at me, both not speaking. David's face was one of a man who thought he had just won an argument. I didn't want to throw what I had to say into an argument so merely let the conversation slide. I changed the subject. I talke
d some more about the day I had had before telling him I had been doing some research.
"What on?" David asked, curious. Ever the academic.
"On degree options." I told him, "I would like to stay here."
David's jaw hit the deck. He looked so shocked that I could hardly believe it was him sitting in front of me. David was always a talker, yet now he was totally silent.
"What?" I asked, hoping to prod him into action.
"Nothing, it's just - I'm shocked." He told me.
"Well, I can see that." I told him, "But aren't you happy to hear it, too?"
David cleared his throat, as if to regain his composure, before going on, "Yes. I am happy."
"Well, you don't sound it." I told him, because he really didn't. His voice sounded pretty flat, although it didn't sound disinterested at least.
David rushed to tell me, "No, I am happy. I am just shocked."
There was silence for some time after that as David took a few swigs of his drink then asked me, "Are you sure you're making the right decision?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused. Why wasn't he jumping for joy?
"You were happy to be an exchange student not long ago, now you want to be an international student in Ireland? It's a big leap." He told me.
"Is it?" I asked, "Is it a big leap, or do you not want me to stay?" I asked.
"I never said that!" He protested loudly.
I had nothing more to say to him, so just stared at him. I hoped he wanted me to stay. I hoped he felt the same way about me that I felt about him. But what if he didn't? What if this was just a short term fling for him after all? The thought of him not feeling the same way as I did really hurt. It made my heart sink and my face fall.
Trying to regain some composure, I took a few deep breaths and told myself it was fine. If he didn't want me, I would stay anyway. It wasn't that much more expensive to study here over home, and as it turned out (I found through my research) I could get into law school just the same with an international degree as long as my grades were good. I came from an old legal family, too, which would have to mean something.