Mind At Ease

I - Moving

     It was hard to think of a world outside of Cork, Ireland. Nothing but home seemed to be ideal for the rest of his life. Despite not living under his parents’ roof anymore, especially since he’s at the ripe age of thirty, the idea of leaving his parents behind for the land of the free put him in emotional turmoil. The idea of leaving anything of his home country seemed utterly impossible. 

     At the moment though, he was trying not to think so hard about the future, and practice focusing on the present. It was something his therapist always hammered into his head. Keep going, keep going, keep going, the world isn’t going any faster as long as you keep your mind paced. 

     Eoghan sighed, and continued flipping through the frailed pages of his old, childhood journal. Stickers adorned the front cover, curling at the tips and threatening to fall off and make a mess. Each page concealed something secret, something that was never usually an open book for people to tread through. People weren’t supposed to read this, and sometimes  even himself, now older and on the brink of experiencing another panic attack, couldn’t help but feel cautious that someone might be spying on him, reading the deepest darkest secrets of a poor pubescent boy dealing with a guilty conscience. 

     He had stopped at a specific page, the ink from the thin tipped pen he’d used when he was seventeen smudged across the wrinkled page like a raindrop on a car window. The hurried, saddened writing tore at Eoghan’s heart as memories of the day flooded back into his mindscape. Did that really happen? He pondered the event, perhaps for much too long, before eventually subduing to the reminder of the rest of the packing he needs to do for the day. 

     He was tired of reading it anyway, plus the race in his brain was a large contributing factor to the exhaust he was experiencing. He slammed the journal shut and placed it gently into the small, military green duffle bag, which sat like a glob of trash at the foot of his old bed. There were small patches covering most of the shoulder strap; things like the French flag in honour of his mother’s direct heritage and terrifying lectures in hastily French, and an irish one for the place he grew up. Here. What would it be like for him in America? He was sure it wouldn’t be any different. The worst that could happen is having to be asked to repeat himself because his Cork accent may be hard to understand if he’s rambling far too fast. 

     He turned his attention to the suitcase, maroon coloured and tightly packed in the corner of the small bedroom, practically at its breaking point. Oddly enough there wasn’t anything but VHS tapes and old polaroids, documenting his journey from unfathomably irritating infant to sexually repressed teenhood, even with small sprinkles of his band days in university. How’d he ever have the time to form a band? 

     Eoghan dismissed the thoughts, and reminded himself to focus; focus, focus, focus! He pulled the strap of the duffle bag over his shoulder with a huff, and picked up the suitcase and held it by its handle. Now, the door--conveniently cracked, Eoghan wedged his foot in between and kicked the bedroom door open,  successfully running down the steps to the front door with the gracefulness of a eighty-year old pumped from yoga classes. Managing to both pop his shoulder and carefully place the items that hurt his back worse than his posture, he sighed in relief, his hands at his sides, staring with content at the articles of chaos before him. 

     Swinging his head to the side, he caught a quick glimpse of his mother, who was nestled in the corner of the brown loveseat of their living quarters. The television, off it seems, lay in the other corner of room collecting dust as his mother, spun the thread through and through, making Eoghan a goodbye scarf. 

     “What am I going to do with a scarf in August, Ma?” Eoghan inquired, walking into the room and taking a seat next to his mother, his legs folded in, as he quietly both waited for a mean response and watched his mother’s nimble figures knit. 

     Sucking her teeth in impatience, “do you like the colours? Red, blue for France with green and orange for Ireland.”

     Eoghan though the combination was absolutely atrocious, but it was the thought that mattered right?

     “It looks…” he began, and without a doubt his mother had noticed the pause of uncertainty, “...Cute.” Eoghan gave his mother a dorky, dimpled smirk as she swats him away with a free hand. 

     “Go see your father,” she said in French, “he said he’d help with packing.”

    “Oh, that’s grand, but I’m already ready; just need to get the stuff I collected from my bedroom upstairs to the apartment,” Eoghan sits up, and jumped off of the couch with a huff, making his way down the hallway, the bathroom door opened on the right. 

     His father was usually in there planning another remodel. In spite of being retired, he still had his constructor mindset. Build this, rebuild that. The sound of hammers never ceased to end when Eoghan would visit from time to time. 

     His father looked up from the kitchen sink, the bottom drawers open in hopes of finding some sort of problem he could fix, “what?”

     “I’m saying bye, papa! I’ve gotta leave and get some rest. The movers are coming tomorrow,” Eoghan said, giving his father a puppy dog pout, his arms outstretched, expecting a hug from his old man. 

     “Hmph,” his father gets up from the sink, and pulled Eoghan into a tight bear hug, squeezing every bit of air out from his lungs, “remember to call me if you need to talk, O.K.? I don’t want any surprise calls…”

     “Yes, yes, yessir. Everything will be fine, financially, spiritually, emotionally,” Eoghan intercepts, and with a pat on his father’s shoulder, he made his way...