My Daughter Was Looking for a College. I Was Looking for a Way Out.
Colleges tours in Ireland made me question everything--especially America.
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I wake up in our Dublin hotel, jet-lagged and desperate for caffeine.
At home in the US, we’d probably have a mini Keurig or a drip coffee maker. But here, I find a proper electric kettle with ceramic mugs, Barry’s black tea, milk, and sugar—coffee tucked away as an afterthought, in Nescafé instant packets at the back of the jar. I fill the kettle and smile. Despite hailing from a coffee capital, black tea with milk—preferably oat or almond, but whole milk will do—is my wake-up beverage of choice.
“Want some tea?” I ask my two teen daughters. We have a day of adventure ahead but like me, they’re bleary.
They nod, and I pour us three steaming mugs.
I’m warmed with a sense of familiarity for this new-to-me city.
My eldest rolls out of bed, takes her tea, and breezes past me to the mirror, faint wafts of vanilla, musk, and red berry trailing behind her. At 17, she’s deep into beauty products, filling our home with sweet-scented lotions and potions.
My heart tugs as I breathe her in. How I’ll miss her sweetness when she leaves my home for college next year.
“Can we go to those thrift shops we saw online today?” she asks, downing her drink as she rummages through her pink overstuffed cosmetics bag.
“Those are in Dublin. Today we’re taking the train to Galway for the university tour,” I remind her. She wrinkles her nose, displeased, before applying contour on its bridge.
She’s here to find stylish shops. She knows just where to go.
I’m here to help her find her future. And I’m struggling with what to do with mine.
I may know my way around words and storytelling. But finding my way around an unfamiliar place? I’m at a loss. I have to use landmarks and verbal cues to compensate for my utter lack of inner compass.
We’re in Ireland for the first time — unless you count last summer, when my daughters and I spent two hours searching Dublin for undies after Aer Lingus lost our bags and our connecting flight.
And I don’t.
I’m traveling with my daughters and their dad, my ex-husband — and yes, this is an unusual arrangement, even for us. But here we are.
Dublin is a gem of contradictions, each block an urban blur of artful murals, gothic cathedrals, stylish modern shops, tasty bakeries, raucous pubs, and back again. And the music! Buskers and bar bands flood the streets with songs, some traditional, some originals, and many covers — especially of U2 songs, of course. Lucky for me, it’s a great place to wander without a map.
But we’re not here simply as tourists. David and our daughters are dual US and Irish citizens, and we’re traveling with intent.
We’re here to tour colleges.
We’re here to explore their heritage.
We’re here to see if Dublin feels like home.
Well, at least I am.
I may be the only one without citizenship, but I’m the one nudging us to consider Dublin for our new home.
My ex and I share a sense of dismay over the state of the United States and, in theory, a desire to leave and live abroad. As our kids steer us to yet another trendy shop, we take in the sunny day and gorgeous sights. I marvel over how comfortable it all is — both the city, and traveling it with my ex.
“I love it here,” says David.
“Me too,” I reply. “Anytime you’re ready to move, say the word.”
“But I can’t afford to just up and leave.”
He’s not wrong — I can’t afford to either. Not properly. But I’ve got equity in my home. And he’s got citizenship. Together, these pieces are interesting but don’t quite complete the puzzle of relocating our nontraditional family.
“Perhaps we’ll find a way here eventually,” I give as my non-answer, a thousand unanswered questions lingering between theory and our shared reality.
Could our child starting college be the catalyst that moves us all to Dublin?
That’s a story not yet ready to be written.
I’ve done it before.
Over half my life ago, I picked Seattle as my new home, moved across a continent on six-days notice, and fell in love.
Not with a man — but with this city lodged between two mountain ranges, on the cusp of a tech boom and the cultural coattails of grunge. Seattle was edgy and strange like I’d always hoped a city could be, liveable and affordable and fun in ways that resonated with 20-something me.
I relocated and never looked back.
Finding the right place made things fall into place.
In Seattle, I found lifelong friendships. I launched a music website, built a career in tech, and came into my creative power as a writer. I married, bought a house, had two kids, divorced, and have lived in that little brick Tudor for nearly 20 years. I’ve raised my kids with my ex across two homes, but as one family. In Seattle, I thought I’d picked my forever home, and hoped it was a place my children would want to live as adults.
Seattle is deeply imperfect but as a blue liberal dot — some might say, bubble — it’s a haven for the freedoms I cherish.
I love Seattle.
But Seattle is still in the United States.
And the United States is a tough and disorienting land these days.
Helping our babies launch into adulthood is a timeless challenge parents face. Trying to guide them at this moment in time, during a time of such political, economic, and social uncertainty? It’s destabilizing. I feel my core equilibrium, my True North, faltering — just as my daughters need me as their compass.
How can I prepare my children for a world I no longer trust?
It’s hard to know which way to point them.
Unlike me, my eldest has an innate sense of direction. She races ahead of us, bold as she traverses the city, confident in her ability to find her way back home to the hotel. Not long ago, I had to plan every step of our trips. Now she trailblazes, and I trail behind with snacks. I know she’ll get us where we need to be.
When it comes to her life direction, she has a similar fire. “I can’t wait for college,” she told me ahead of the trip. And I believe her. She was the first of her friends to wear makeup, to have a boyfriend, to drive a car. Yet when it comes to the logistics of where, how, and which college to pick, she’s more unsure. She’s hung back, leaning on me to guide her and handle logistics in spite of my encouragement to take the lead.
Helping her select a college will be my final act as the mom of a child. For all subsequent decisions, I’ll consider myself lucky if my adult daughter asks for my input.
I always vowed not to tether my fledgling adult kids to my home, and I still feel that way now as I face the reality of my eldest growing up and out of it.
She’s almost ready for the world.
I’m almost ready to let her go.
The big question is: to where?
I should feel disoriented.
But so much in Dublin makes sense to me as a Seattleite. The grey days interspersed with sun breaks. The warm beverages. The English language, of course.
Dublin also has the perfect landmark to orient me: The River Liffey, which bifurcates Dublin into north and south. The Liffey has 24 mismatched walking bridges across Dublin, with ducks and swans scattered about the tranquil river.
Wherever we roam, I can always make my way back to the Liffey and know exactly where I am. It’s reassuring, like a steadfast guide in a new city.
Every time I see the Liffey makes Dublin feel — dare I say — a bit familiar, already.
“Where are you guys?” I text.
My children have returned to Grafton Street to gawk at the selection of Adidas sneakers they saw yesterday. I have no idea how to get back there. My eldest does, of course, and she and her sister have raced ahead of me. Now I’m at a cobblestone crossroads and am unsure which way to turn.
“Go left,” my eldest responds. I find them outside the OFFICE store, and we head inside.
“The sneaker game here is strong,” sighs my eldest.
She’s not wrong. Adidas line the walls, their signature three-line sneakers in a dazzling assortment of colors, a rainbow of footwear fashion.
“Shall we try some on?” I ask.
My kids’ faces light up, surprised and delighted. I’ve surprised myself. This trip is costing a fortune, and the stock market is in free-fall. I have no business buying three new pairs of sneakers. But we try them on.
They’re comfortable. They’re far more stylish than the Hokas I brought.
They’re more… European.
“Should we get these as our big Irish souvenirs?” I ask.
“Yay for new sneakers!” my youngest cries.
“I think they’re called trainers here,” I smile.
“Yes!!” agrees my eldest.
We’re starting to blend in already.
We arrive to Trinity College as tourists, not as a prospective student family.
It’s my fault. In the flurry of booking this trip, I somehow scheduled our student tour at the Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. I steered us wrong, yet again. I’m angry with myself. We can’t leave our college tour of Ireland without seeing Trinity.
So I book the next best thing — tours of the grounds and the Book of Kells.
Trinity is gorgeous and historic. Considered the “Harvard of Ireland,” it was founded in 1592 and boasts alums like Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, and apparently, Courtney Love, who studied theology there for two semesters.
Our tour guide is Liam, an older Irish gentleman who worked in The Long Room of the old library until retiring, and then returned to Trinity to major in history.
Make a note: history majors make the very best tour guides.
Liam is patient, knowledgeable, and funny, and I find myself rapt, taking in the university’s — and in turn, the country’s — storied history. From the fraught journey of the Book of Kells to the sorrow of the “Gorta Mór” to the country’s violent fight for independence, only earned in 1921, I realize how little I know.
Ireland may feel familiar, but I’m a stranger to this land. It isn’t my heritage.
But it is my children’s.
Yet my eldest seems a bit checked out, not her usual engaged self. “I don’t think I can get in here,” she mutters. I’m grateful she’s opened up to me.
“I think it’s a reach school for you,” I assure her. “But that also means it’s within reach.”
I believe this is true. But I realize she may be right. Trinity only accepts about a third of its applicants. Their requirements are rigorous. And they don’t have an art or design major, so her portfolio won’t likely help with admissions.
I’m not certain she wants to go to school so far from home.
I’m not certain I want her to, either.
It’s one thing to contemplate your child flying the nest.
It’s another for them to soar all the way to the other side of the ocean.
I’m also unsure I can get in — not to college, but to the country.
And even if I do, I worry Dublin may never feel like home.
It worked when I was 25. But at 54, with a whole life already built, I’m not sure any new city could feel like home. I’ve grown up alongside my Seattle peers, from my 20s to my 50s. When we see each other, we appreciate the entirety of who we’ve been for three decades. I would mourn the loss of that sense of shared history elsewhere.
I fear I’d always be looking in on a culture and community I could never fully grasp.
It may be late for me. But for my children? They could adapt. They could grow roots. Ireland is their heritage. Is it worth it to lose my home so my daughters can gain a second one?
I don’t claim to know where the US is heading. But I fear for the decisions being made at the highest level of our government. I suspect we’re heading for dark years ahead.
My eldest may have an excellent sense of direction. She can find her way to Sephora in any city. But she can’t fathom the magnitude of her college decision against the backdrop of our current political situation, let alone navigate it.
She can’t see how having two “home” countries could open doors for her.
How can I best usher her through this decision? I wish I could consult Apple Maps, or find a tour guide to point her in the right direction.
But I can’t.
Only we can help start her on this journey, and the roads blur and intersect in incomprehensible ways, leading to paths unknown.
It may be touristy, but my kids and I love Dublin’s Temple Bar neighbo(u)rhood.
The cobblestone streets are flanked by graffitied and muraled walls, with doorways leading into some of the coolest thrift shops I’ve ever seen. We explore pubs, record stores, galleries, and outdoor crafts. Late afternoon on our final day in Dublin, my eldest and I approach Temple Bar itself.
“Can we go look inside?” she asks.
She loves that teens can go to pubs here. So do I.
We enter the darkened bar, already full of revelers, and make our way to the band in back. Two men onstage play a rousing Irish rendition of John Denver’s “Country Roads,” the singer on acoustic guitar accompanied by an extraordinary flautist carrying the melody. The bridge greets us:
“I hear her voice in the mornin’ hour, she calls me.
The radio reminds me of my home far away.
Drivin’ down the road, I get a feelin’
That I should’ve been home yesterday, yesterday.”
Except I don’t “get a feelin’” we should be home. Not yesterday, not tomorrow.
Instead my daughter and I belt the chorus along with the rest of the crowd.
“Country roads, take me home,
To the place, I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mama,
Take me home, country roads.”
We return to Seattle tomorrow. For now, it’s our home. I suspect it always will be.
But that place we belong? That country road — whether it leads to the US or Ireland or elsewhere — remains to be seen.
The best this “mountain mama” can do is trust my kids will find their way.
We leave Temple Bar and walk a block north to the River Liffey, following its bank west across the city. “Country roads, take me home,” my daughter sings softly, more to herself than to me, as we head toward our hotel to join her dad and sister.
Country roads. City streets.
Whatever direction they lead us, they all take us home in the end.
Thanks for reading.
I’m Dana DuBois, an essayist and GenX word nerd living in the Pacific Northwest—and founder of I Write Out Loud and co-host of The Daily Whatever Show. Through memoir writing, I explore the larger cultural forces shaping relationships, feminism, parenting, media, modern dating, and life in mid-flight. Em-dashes, Oxford commas, and well-placed semi-colons make my heart happy.
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I love this piece.
My daughter is a year behind yours and she's not really interested in going to college or leaving the US, it breaks my heart. Not the college part because it's her choice, but being poor, I know it might be her only way out and our girls deserve so much better than what this country has in store for them. My only regret in life is not going to school abroad and getting the fuck out of here when I had a chance (Japan was and still is my end goal). I'd leave tomorrow if I could.
Thank you for taking us on this journey with you.
I so get the wanting to leave part. I am worried about where the USA is headed. I half-heartedly research countries to which I may be eligible to emigrate. A Canadian great-grandmother, an Italian grandmother, and a German grandfather could be my ticket out of the USA. But my children and grandchildren will be here and I know I couldn't leave.