No New Notifications

1st December and the weather is unironically depictive of my current mood, dark, wet and seems like its winning a fight I didn't know we were in. The 19:05 train pulls off from Sligo Station or Mac Diarmada and I open my laptop as if there was going to be something on there that would help as a distraction or an escape from myself. I have frequented this journey from Sligo Town to Dublin Connolly umpteen times over the past year and my system for same curated down to T. My ability to meticulously plan and execute never letting me down, except when it does. When the world with its unpredictability shows it's face I forgot was there every so often and reminds me that the control I think I have on the world and my own life is in fact a mirage. Earlier today I woke after in my cold but warm two bedroom house in Tullaghan, county Leitrim, an extremely rural seaside village (if you can even call as something as small and isolated as that a village). Practically still dark I could feel a throbbing in the back of my head begin to surface and I wondered if this was what had woken me. The throbbing in my head was indeed self induced, stemming from a wild Saturday night of cannabis and sugary snacks, my almost nightly routine at this stage. However it was a Saturday night and I was feeling particularly more lonesome than usual so I had gifted myself an extra helping of both. Whether it was a gift or an increased dose was required to cover up the feelings of my immediate reality I still haven't yet clarified. I pondered on this as I leaned over to check the time on my phone. 7:55am and no new notifications. The feelings and negative self talk I numbed out last night are rapid in their meteoric rise to my psyche,"Obviously there's no notifications, what were you expecting, you idiot".

My yoga class that was scheduled for 10am in the resort I instruct at from time to time was canceled for reasons unknown yesterday morning. I got this news as I lay in my second rented room, this one the other side of Ireland, in Dublin. I pondered whether I should bother going west at all this weekend but the thoughts of remaining stagnant for the full weekend ahead quickly panged my stomach with a hollow pit and I opened the Irish Rail app to check the train times. 15:05, 16:05, 17:30 or 19:30, I'll make the 16:05, it's Friday and the music industry post covid usually shuts down around lunchtime on Friday anyways. I realize how lucky I am to be still working remotely despite the return to office mandate that was issued to the majority of the working world in 2023.

The canceled yoga class, memories of mornings spent sharing naked warm skin with ex girlfriend, the pain in my shoulders from yesterdays 3 hour surf session were just some of the things that weighed on my mind for a few minutes as I tried to go back to sleep and not begin the almost daily routine of negative self talk, self judgement, and criticism of every aspect of my life. It wasn't long before the dopamine charged urge to check my social media arose, thankfully I managed to fight this off for long enough that I could feel myself begin to drift off to sleep again. I particularly loved this type of sleep at this very particular time of early morning as it usually lead to lucid dreams of preposterous nature and as I could feel the weight in my eyelids grow heavier I began to wonder what would be in store this time. Just over two hours later a deep barking sound startled me from a sweaty sleep. My housemates girlfriend was visiting for the weekend and I could hear the shuffling of jackets, keys and dog leashes as they got ready to take their dogs for a walk. My brain shot back to visions of staying my ex girlfriend's house in north west Donegal and her getting out of bed to tend to her dogs, both of whom I had grown to love an immense amount. I had been dreaming of work and a preposterous scenario that indeed warranted the sweat I thought to myself as I leaned over again to check the time. 10:17 am and no new notifications. I remembered that a local Indian woman gives yoga classes in the community centre across the road on Sunday mornings at 11am, or was it 11:30 am?. I searched through my Whatsapp group chats to find the group, no mention of the time or if class was going ahead today, all particularly on brand with rural Ireland. I decided to myself that it was 11am and that I had enough time to jump in the shower to wash off the sleep sweats and last nights indulgences. I turn the shower all the way to the cold setting and tried to relax my breathing, cold water exposure has become something of a habit I now greatly enjoy, whether that be in the ocean or the shower. If I was giving a yoga class at the resort this morning I would have hurled myself into the Atlantic Ocean at about 8.30am to wash off the groggy stoned feeling but today the shower was more than sufficient. I reluctantly drank a glass of lemon water, suppressed with great difficulty my craving for a black iced coffee, gathered my mat and began the short walk to the community centre. A surprisingly mild morning met me but as I turned the corner out of the house a gust of wind almost stopped me in my tracks, onshore wind, the surf will be shit today I thought to myself. I get to the community centre and see only one car outside and the first of two doors into the hall is open, the usual sign that the class is in fact going ahead. I peep inside without opening the second door and I see the Indian woman setting up inside. I reach for my phone, 10:55am and no new notifications, before I have the chance to look up I jump at the sound of the door opening.

"Good morning",

"Morning, how are you?" I say with a smile. "Class is on today yeah?"

"Yes it is, we'll get started shortly"

To this day I still cannot recall the name of this woman, despite me attending this class a number of times in the past as well as us having had a pretty in depth conversation about India, yoga teacher training and her journey to Ireland. Perhaps that's a reflection of your own self centeredness, more negative self talk I say to myself as I roll out my mat in a spot beside the one working radiator in the hall. The class proceeds in a fashion that I imagine any traditional yoga class does, not the Lululemon themed competitive absurdity I am so guilty of regularly engaging in at studios in Dublin or any other metropolis for that matter. She beautifully opens the class with sanskrit chanting, helps us centre and arrive, brings our breath, body and mind into awareness, introduces intense asana movement, winds us down into stillness and eventually closes. After she offers us a piece of fruit, I accept a mandarin so gratefully, thank her, get change for my 10 euro note and make my way back to the house. The wind has picked up and I happily think about the triple shot back iced coffee I'm about to have.

12:37 and no new notifications. I open the surfline app to check the conditions at an enclosed beach about half way between here and Sligo town. 2ft poor conditions. I never really know what I'm looking at on this app, I've never bothered to learn what the numbers mean but I do know that it's just an indicator and rarely accurate of actual conditions. Plus it has a green to dark green icon when the surf is good and an amber to red one when the surf is bad. This color grading is about as far as my knowledge goes. I started surfing about two years ago at the very old age of 31. If you're saying to yourself that it's not that old to start a new hobby, you obviously haven't spend much time in the ocean around regulars who look like they have been shredding waves since they were in the womb. Whether it be from past trauma or genetic code I don't know but being "good" at surfing has never really bothered me. I usually give up on or am reluctant try most things that I am not instantly good at but not with surfing and for the first time in my life the noise and chaos in my head started to subside and I was instantly hooked. I couldn't get enough and to this day I still struggle to convey the feeling of peace that the ocean brings me. This might not seem very obvious on days like today when the wind is onshore, it's mid november in North-West Ireland and the bitterly cold and messy white water Atlantic Ocean waves are bashing me over the head from every angle. However even on days like today, as soon as my head is underwater the noise in my head stops and the feeling of serenity is something I long for on a daily basis.

After my coffee and two slices of peanut honey butter toast and banana, I take my wetsuit, my boots, put on my dry robe and head for the beach. 14:02 and no new notifications. I load my things into very old and according to a recent failed NCT test, my very unroadworthy jeep and set off. I've grown accustomed to the once ominous sounds and rattles that this jeep makes and pay no attention to each one I hear as I can now identify each one as regular and not a reason for alarm. After a few minutes drive I see the ocean, think of the incredible surf I had yesterday and smile to myself. The feeling of loneliness subside momentarily and a wave of gratitude washes over me (no pun intended), this has been happening more and more recently.

Winter has always been an incredibly difficult time. I have struggled to put into words on why this actually is but I think it has something to do with my perception of time, of which I feel like there is never enough of. I fundamentally disagree with winter, I don't want to go inside, I want to be outside. When I'm inside the noise and chaos get louder and louder in my head, it tells me that I'm a failure, that I'll end up alone, that every decision I've made up until now has been the wrong one. Winter steals my daylight and replaces it with the view of the perfect and connected lives of other people through the black screen in my hand, reminding me that I am alone. It reminds me that I have at times isolated myself, that I have alienated myself. In winter I am reminded of the lovers that have tried with every fibre of their being to love me but I wouldn't let them. In winter I stare at the claw marks of everyone who tried to be in my life but I pushed away.

As I stare out of over the cliff I see two young guys getting into the sea and despite the atrocious conditions, it's the only motivation I need to put on my still wet wetsuit and jump in. Great effort is needed to assemble any sort of order in the ocean today but I repeat to myself a mantra I learned pretty early on in my surfing journey. There is nothing wrong with the ocean, ever, it just is and it is my reaction to the ocean's conditions is the only thing I am ever in control of. A short hour or so session is all I care to engage in or all that my burning shoulders would allow for today. I catch two waves, went right unintentionally and considering I can only go left I call it a success. I make my way back up the cliff and see a group of three mid twenty something year old girls changing into their wetsuits. In the middle there is short blonde girl with her back exposed to me as I walk by, I can't help but admire the detailed lines of her pale skin wrapped tightly around her shoulder blades and spine as her hair falls down to her lower back. I walk by them to my car and as I change out of my wetsuit and get hit with the returning and familiar deep pang of loneliness. How nice it would be to be jumping into the ocean with your friends, I think to myself, not in a longing way but rather an acceptance that a tightly knitted group of close friends is just not something I'm ever going to have in my life.

Just after 4.30pm and the darkness of night has almost fully set in. I make the short drive back to my house, think of what I'm going to eat and whether I'll make my way back to Dublin this evening or first thing tomorrow morning. The reduced daylight winter has stolen from me results in it not being possible to surf after work leaving there very little to do in a rural village in the north west of Ireland in mid November. I see people my age around here, the same faces I've seen for the last year or so in their established friend groups. I've exchanged pleasantries with some of them in the water from time to time but rarely more than that. Sometimes upon seeing them laugh together in a group setting I can instantly get shot back to my own adolescence. Images of me standing there replay in my mind, rejected as I watch a group of my peers execute their plan to escape my presence and collectively run away from me. A regular occurrence throughout my youth that after a while began to reaffirm itself in my mind. The chases of acceptance I used to engage in after them slowly subsided as I became a teenager and replaced it was the belief system that not only am I better off, but I actually deserve to be alone.

I wolf down a delicious early dinner of potato wedges and a fresh cod with a pea and mint infused sauce, the ocean inspires an appetite like no other. As the pea and mint hit my taste buds I am brought back to covid lockdown times. It was February 2021 also in North West Ireland, this time Donegal about two hours from where I am now, living with my girlfriend at the time. She was living and caring for her mother who was unwell and we had decided that we would take advantage of the idle properties that are usually rented out to tourists in her area. She found a beautiful space way too big for two of us but very reasonably priced due to the pandemic, surrounded by the beautiful beaches of Gaoith Doir, a place that will now forever hold a special place in my heart. It is very stereotypical to look back and only appreciate now what you had then but her cooking and relationship to food was one of the most intrinsically unique characteristics she has, the residue of which has left a permanent mark on me for life. She taught me everything I know about food and has completely changed my relationship to it. I grew up in a household where food was a in inconvenience and not something to be enjoyed. My exhausted and lifelong ill mother did her best to keep the appetites of 4 children satisfied and often times we were not only encouraged but ordered to eat quicker. This was so the kitchen could be cleaned and returned to the order that brought some semblance of peace to my mothers environment, the only thing she could enforce some control over, her home. This stuck with me until I met R and slowly but surely her ideologies towards mindful eating, fresh ingredients, careful and slow preparation, slow eating and conversation soon became my own, for this and so many other things including the infusion of pea and mint I will be forever grateful to her for.

17: 37 and no new notifications. There was train at 19:05 and I decided I'd take it. The thoughts of essentially being confined to my room and the kitchen in the Bundoran house for the week ahead coupled with poor surf conditions sparked a panic in my mind as I quickly packed my rucksack and headed for the car. My travel routine was curated down to the very last detail and for the most part was always executed without error. Load car, drive 30 mins to Sligo train station, park car here. It's essential that you get a spot in the official train car park not the surrounding streets. At the beginning I used to pay for a car park spot but after forgetting to pay online one day and returning 11 days later to an unclamped car I stopped paying altogether. If a spot was secured and time permitted it, a quick walk to Lidl aroud the corner to pick up some snakcs for the journey. Back at the station open email and pull up an old train ticket with the same time as the train I'm getting now. This I don't always do but today I could see that the rather lethargic looking ticket inspector sitting beside the sliding doors leading to the train platform would in fact, despite his title, not be enforcing any ticket inspection whatsoever. Show old ticket, on train, clothes are wet, find a seat, one with a table and window view is not reserved, sit, put bag on overhead ledge, train takes off, no ticket inspector, too easy. Upon sitting I am struck with an overwhelming urge to write, I don't where it has come from or what has inspired it but in that moment I if do not start to transfer the thoughts and words in my head onto a sheet of paper or screen I will have some form of panic attack. I don't want to just write on a Microsoft Doc so I start to google about platforms such as this, a medium for sharing my internal dialogue, perhaps anonymously incase people think I'm utterly insane. I start to write and I just don't stop, I don't think this has ever happened to me before I say to myself about 1500 words in, but I quickly suppress that thought and go back to writing. About half way into the journey my newfound concentration is disturbed by a young man late 20s I would imagine looking for his seat. He is clearly not Irish, I can tell because he is trying to match the number on his ticket with the numbers over the seats. A standard procedure you might think but not Ireland. We prefer to sit wherever we find, regardless of the reservation system, the repeated announcements not to sit in reserved seats and then engage in the somewhat awkward dance of having to move if someone actually wants to sit in their allocated seat. The man is tall, dark skin with a very clear complexion and a strong jaw. "Excuse me, is this carriage F do know?". His American accent very distinct. I explained the somewhat relaxed nature of the reservation system on Irish Rail and offered him to sit across from me. He checks his ticket again, "I think this is actually my seat anyway" he smiled. I smiled back and returned to writing. I stopped momentarily and as I often find myself doing and began to notice this man with extensive detail. He takes out his MacBook Pro, his mirror-like iPhone and his wireless headphones all from from his Michael Koors backpack. I struggled to imagine this man to be from the very small town which he embarked the train in and wondered what he was doing. Visiting a friend for the weekend, a lover perhaps, a celebration or gathering of some sort, a weekend spent with a family member. I return to writing.

We arrive in Maynooth, 21:33 and no new notifications. College students disembark and begin their weekly pilgrimage back to their rented accomodation for their week ahead. "Exams are actually too close man" I hear one young man say to another as exit the carriage. My gaze returns to the dark gentleman sharing my table. He has spent the last hour vigorously switching between his two screens, just as I was about to return to writing I notice him go to his camera roll and begin to flick through what seem like images and footage of some event the night before. He swipes through the footage, deleting some blurry ineligible ones, before stoping on a picture of a brunette but fair haired man. This man from what I can see is roughly equal in age, very smartly dressed and also possess a very clear complexion, lover it is I thought. He gazes at the picture for several minutes, my eyes drift up to his face and then back down to his phone screen as he stares at him. I think of their story, is it new? Did he just meet his parents? Are they sure of each other? Is it love? Will it last?

The reflection of myself in the window of the train that has occupied my peripheral vision to my left for the majority of the journey is now being replaced by the artificial light of Dublin suburbs, Broombridge then Drumcondra. An automated announcement begins on the speaker. "Beimid ag teacht isteach go stáisiún Uí Chonghaile go luath. Seo e an stad dearnach. We will shortly be arriving in Connolly Station, this is the last stop". I realise that I have forgotten to eat my snacks, a faint smile arises as I feel somewhat proud that I have managed to not spend the entire journey scrolling through various social media applications. I am starting to notice just how bad social media actually makes me feel and as a result am beginning to hate it with an ever growing passion. One recent weekend I was in Munich and I managed to go from close of business Friday to Monday morning without looking at social media once. Granted I was visiting a European city and occupied with lots to do but the space I felt in my head upon waking that Monday morning was nothing short of oasis like.

The train pulls into Connolly station, 22:07 and no new notifications.