Jenna Leigh Design Co.

I don’t really remember when I first started dreaming of Ireland. It may have been when I fell slightly in love with Tom Branson from Downton Abbey as a teenager. But ever since I first heard the Irish accent and began to learn a little about their culture and landscape, I was fascinated. I had never been out of the country, but Ireland was at the top of my list for traveling overseas.

Fast forward to 2023. A friend and I had semi-seriously planned a trip to the U.K. and Ireland, but we kept postponing it another year to save more money and feel a bit more ready for such a big venture.

Until the beginning of the year, when she told me she was spontaneously going to Ireland with one of our other friends!

Believe it or not, I was not mad. (These girls are still two of my dearest friends). The trip was one of convenience and would not be my dream tour of Ireland. They weren’t staying very long, and they would be primarily in Northern Ireland staying with a friend.

But my wheels started turning. I contacted a different friend who had the means to go and asked if she would be interested. She said yes and asked if we could invite another friend of hers who I had met before. Soon we had our tickets and were planning our incredible eight-day stay in Ireland!

The girls I was traveling with were extremely sweet and gracious and let me plan almost everything. They are both more laid-back and preferred to just go along for the ride, so I took the reins and booked our stays, found restaurants, and researched train tickets and sightseeing. At last, mid-October rolled around—the end of the tourist season for the year, as we would discover—and we were on our way!

It was a rocky start. Two of us were getting over sickness. A long day and night of travel had gotten to me by the time we landed in Dublin. That, hunger, a lack of caffeine, and the shock of being in another country made me anxious and unsteady. I came very near to a nervous breakdown but managed to hold back just enough. I called my mom from our hotel and she made me feel a bit better.

But the homesickness lingered. I was in a strange place, among strange people, thousands of miles from home. The full weight of making sure we exchanged the right amount of currency, found our way in busy cities, and made it to the correct buses and trains on time hit me like a tidal wave. To be honest, I was emotionally unsteady throughout the entire trip (which is not like me). I still had a wonderful time. I enjoyed it immensely—the magnificent, breathtaking Cliffs of Moher; the quaint Irish breakfast; our superb Air B-n-B hosts. Tasting a Guinness in the quintessential Temple Bar. Riding a quiet train in the afternoon through peaceful Irish countryside. Driving at a wild speed in the front seat of a taxi with our handsome, charismatic driver. My friends were easygoing and seemed to be enjoying themselves. We never missed a train, never lost our way. We were blessed with good weather for our hiking days. In every way it could not have been a better trip.

But every morning I literally arrived at breakfast feeling sick to my stomach. I forced food down with gulps of coffee and water and wished I was a less anxious, more laid-back traveler.

What was wrong with me?

Although I had always dreamed of visiting Ireland, now that I was there I was counting down the days until I returned. Finally we were in the airport waiting for our flight back to the States. And when we got on the plane and took off from Irish soil—

I immediately began to miss it.

I’ve been aching to go back ever since. I feel kind of torn in two. It’s a homesickness that haunts me wherever I turn. And I’ve realized that it’s an inevitable feeling, when we are travelers wherever we stay, for this world is not our home….

How could we not be homesick?

I long for a different land, one better than Virginia and Ireland, one with richer, greener pastures, higher mountains, and bluer seas. How can I be satisfied with anything less than the land that I was made for?

As C.S. Lewis famously said in Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Maybe I will get the chance to return to Ireland one day. Maybe not. But maybe, one day, everything I long for will finally be made real, right before my eyes. One day this ache will be gone and I will truly be at home.

h o m e s i c k

I mounted the cliffs that loomed over the sea
Caverns of rock, carpets of green
Beauty calling deep to deep,
Wonders that ached inside of me.

Because they spoke to me of a distant land
Much farther from home than where I stood then.
And I can’t be satisfied with deserts of sand,
When I was made for a garden.

The lilt of their voices was like melody,
Rich with the song of their emerald country
Full of a passionate history,
And I could have listened to it on repeat.

Because they spoke to me of a distant land
Much farther from home than where I stood then.
And I can’t be satisfied with deserts of sand,
When I was made for a garden.

Is it wind that I’m chasing?
How long will it take
To know the full redemption
Of this homeward ache?

Because He speaks to me of a distant land
Much farther from home than where I now stand.
And I need not be satisfied with deserts of sand, 
When He will bring me to His garden.