Irish Withdrawal

So I am going through Irish withdrawal. What’s that you ask? Well let me explain. First of all, the most obvious point, I am Irish. Being Irish means many things, including drinking heavily, experiencing hangovers that could rival that of an atomic bomb going off in your head, a knack for starting fist fights, and lets be honest here, almost always for no reason what so ever, having a quick and sometimes nasty temper.

I have all of the above traits, however with my second husband now gone I have noticed a peculiar thing. I haven’t had my “Irish up” in quite sometime. Actually I cant even remember the last time I yelled at someone it has been that long. I am too calm, too at peace lately, it’s actually bordering on frightening. I don’t think I have ever been on such an even keel in my life.

I used to hate people that said, their head hits the pillow and whammo they are out like a light. I have had insomnia since I was 11 years old, never in my life has my head hit anything and whammo been out like a light. Except of course when I was drunk, but we`re not counting that for the purposes of this story.

Now, literally my head hits the pillow and I am out like a light and I don’t wake up until my alarm goes off. It is the best feeling in the world. So, like I said above, I am experiencing Irish withdrawal. Nothing seems to phase me, I don’t yell, and have nothing to get agitated about, which believe me is saying a lot since I have two teenagers living with me.

Here’s the weirdest part; I think I like it. I find myself singing in the car on the way home with a smile on my face. I find myself humming and smiling for no apparent reason; it’s a little scary. My friends think I must be smoking a little too much of the happy weed, but I keep telling them, “No, I am high on the peace”, and it’s a great high.

Of course I still have my dark moments that have made me the sullen, cynical person my friends have grown to love, at least I hope they do, but lately that only seems to come out of me when discussing politics, religion or my favorite subject in the world men and marriage. Otherwise I have apparently turned into my father, who has been notoriously known for years in my family as the most irritatingly calm person in the world.

Just to give you an example; when I was 16 I found myself pregnant and to make a long story short, I didn’t tell my parents. I hid the whole pregnancy until the morning I was in labor and literally about an hour away from giving birth right there in my parent’s living room (I will have to tell you that story at another time, its enjoyable I assure you, of course it wasn’t enjoyable at the time for me).

Anyway, when I called my mother into the bathroom to tell her I knew why I wasn’t feeling well, I told her I was pregnant and in labor. She ran to get my father in hysterics. As my father followed my mom back to the bathroom he looked at me sitting there with my fists clenched around the towel rack in immense pain as yet another contraction hit and said, “ Ok get dressed and we will get in the car and go to the hospital”. I think my mother was having heart palpitations that to this day she hasn’t gotten under control, and my father looked like he was ordering Tea and biscuits at some British hotel. As everything was transpiring that morning, in the chaos that was my daughter’s birth, my father called my sister at her job to let her know what was going on.

To this day my sister tells people the story of being at the store she worked at when her manager came over to her to tell her that her father was on the phone. She panicked immediately because my father only uses a phone for emergencies and even then he seems afraid of it, like Freddy Krueger’s tongue will come out of it and lick him. He is not a phone call kind of guy. So panicked and afraid my sister got on the phone to hear the following from my father, “ Hi honey, its Dad. Just wanted to let you know that your sister is having a baby and they are putting her in the ambulance now. If you can get out of the store, meet us there, Bye”. He literally hung up the phone and that was it. My sister sat stunned on the other end of the phone, as co-workers that saw her face rushed to bring her a chair and some water before she fainted dead away. That is my father.

Sometimes I think you could murder someone in front of him, and he would say something like, “ Ok, well you murdered someone, that really isn’t a nice thing to do, but what’s done is done.” I have always been told over the years that I have my mother’s temper, which she inherited from my grandfather. But lately, post second marriage I seem to be slipping a little more closely into my father’s scarily calm and even keeled world.

So for the moment I will enjoy it while it lasts, I think I’ve earned it after the hell of the last five years of my life. But, somehow I have the feeling it wont last forever, that Irish blood will begin to boil up sooner or later, and to whoever is the unlucky recipient of that moment, let me take a moment now to apologize in advance.