Over a year since last words were written on this space. Empty bytes published online and full lives lived offline. Overwhelming milestones of gratitude, and deceitful days of bitterness. It is like we enjoy to think we ride an exhilarating rollercoaster of emotions, yet knowing that we will jump at the first opportunity of getting off.

It is via New York that I begin my latest and probably longest pilgrimage in life so far.

At John F. Kennedy Airport I am hit by text messages of hotel cancelations, and I spend the next two hours fishing for Wi-Fi in between metro stations. Under Brooklyn I feel despair amongst the intoxicating sound of an accordion playing in the distance, and under Manhattan, where the metro seem to turn posh amongst commuter carrying Trader Joe’s grocery bags, I feel relief in finding some pricey accommodation far in the middle of the Bronx.
I emerge in the heart of suburbia, away from the cliches of Empire State of Mind, and frustration joins fatigue as I walk through an overpass engulfed in a jungle of barbed wire.

In the morning and under a gilded October sun, New York presents itself with the same charm of my first visit some decade ago. The Central Park is still there, but lean gravity-defying towers now solemnly watch its South face, while below at street level, pretzel vendors now share the kerbside with mobile COVID clinics.
It is a concrete jungle of balanced exaggerations. Guatemalan coffee blends served in enamel cups at inflated prices under the rusty frames of emergency ladders in Greenwich Village, pizza slices by the dollar in Hell’s Kitchen, and fine cuisine in the gentrified former docks of Chelsea.
New York seems to always reinvent itself into the anti-United States they seem to always aim to be. The 9-11 Memorial delicately looks into the past wounds of the city with hope, while the High Line fiercely looks into the future with determination.

Sweat runs underneath my shirt in the late Manhattan evening and, in an overnight of somewhat of a feverish and cramped flight, my pilgrimage continues in Panama, where morning clouds stick to tall skyscrapers like cotton candy in a country fair.

In the hot and humid morning of Panama City, energetic commuters pile against my backpack as the metro carriage doors close against our clammy faces. In Via Argentina, I skim through some breakfast and check into my hotel. A migraine presents weakening and I set my air conditioning to an Arctic chill.

Panama seems to be the city that took off but never actually made it to cruise altitude. Its suburbs exude the colour palette that only overcrowding signage and kitsch architecture can achieve, while its coastline is dotted with tall skyscrapers that were once envisioned to be the capitalist dream that never was. Skyscrapers now half occupied, now half succumbing to the tropical heat of the Caribbean.

A revitalised Casco Viejo glistens in the midday heat. An island of red tiled roofs and whitewashed walls floating over the shallow waters, where fishermen peak from inside light blue huts in between siestas, and cars race over the eyesore that is the Cinta Costera.
I fight an overnight fever of vivid dreams and bad air conditioning, but just before a heavy outburst of tropical rain punishes the sins of the capital, I silently wonder at the marvels of the Miraflores locks. Built in 1914, the Canal is still an engineering feat that attracts curious tourist stares, energetic gasps and heated geopolitical discussions.

But to finally cross the Equator to the Southern Hemisphere is the part of my pilgrimage I enjoy the most. Cumulonimbus over the Amazon at sunset, touchdowns in the ever fresh tropical evening.
And I experience what I am never tired of experiencing. The earthy smell of that long embrace upon arrival. Fast beating hearts at the unison of the reunion. Souls once again full, even if for a limited amount of time.

Up in the Central Andes, swimming memories float high in the thin air like condors refusing to land. Around a bowl filled with rice and breaded meat I loudly ask: how could I forget what swimming a two-hundred meters butterfly at three kilometres high feel like?
The weeks with my family seem to always be both too short and too long. A whirlpool of heated chats around numerous cups of coffee, siestas scented with the moist of air conditioning and freshly squeezed pineapple juice, breakfasts of sliced avocado overlooking terracotta coloured villages.

The pilgrimage of returning to Ireland is nothing short of cumbersome, with roadblocks into the airport adding stress to an already strained and painful goodbye. We embrace in the chaos, and we hope we see each other again soon. I swallow my tears and run for it again: Tocumen for dinner, New York for breakfast. Reykjavik for a late night snack, Dundalk for whatever meal and mood there is left.

A week later and life is normal in the pilgrimage of life. Monday of office shouting, passive aggressive work calls for the rest of the week. In the National Aquatic Centre I celebrate personal victories and, lulled by the gently mild winds of the Atlantic, I celebrate my birthday in Gran Canaria in the sheltered solitude of travel. Bottle of wine in hand, I look at the sun rising over the Playa de las Canteras and toast to evolution, to life.

I spend Christmas in the cold wintry Cooley, the Lego sets forecasting prospects of house viewings, and New Year’s Eve in the stale air of a strange heatwave in Cologne. At Ottostrasse, my friend and I raise glasses of Riesling in celebration of where we came and most importantly, on where we will go.

But one of the most important pilgrimages in my life seems to just begin and, in a crisp January morning, beams of morning sunshine perforate through the bay windows of an empty living room. What starts as my obsession, soon becomes my reality.

I win the bid and I rush to call the bank, navigating through paperwork as fast as I can. Proof of income you say?, I say sent. Insurance you say?, I say done. Proof that my company was already closed?, and with a few hiccups I say it is sorted.

Pausing for a weekend, and my pilgrimage takes a detour to bucket list territory. Amidst a snowstorm, the airplane sways over the fjords of the Arctic Circle like a toy. The snow crunches underneath my boots as I take the bus into Tromsø, and in town at midnight, fairy lights blow from underneath colourful wooden cabins.
My short time in Northern Norway is nothing but hours of pure surrealism: the modernist Arctic Cathedral encrusted in the heavy snow, the daintily slippery hikes over the city, and most importantly, the sight of a childhood dream.

‘Joined by a childhood friend, I hired a small bus, since these smaller tours can reach remote places more easily. Driving for two hours when it was still bright, the fjords were hauntingly beautiful. Forest reflected on calm waters like giants mirrors. We parked by a frozen lake and waited. First hour and I lost feel of my feet. Second hour and my mind wandered in despair. The sun set and I looked straight into the horizon and then I saw the first one. Faintly green dancing amongst the clouds, my first aurora borealis.
Auroras are unpredictable in the sky, hypnotising in strange noise frequencies, and unique in their swirling colours. And for four hours, I was presented with one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.‘

It is mid through May that, after meeting with my solicitors, a date is settled. On the eighteenth day of May at eleven in the morning, I turn the key to my home. It is in this moment that I sit in my empty living room and think of this pilgrimage of life I decided to undertake at seventeen.

I think of that flight in which I could not afford to purchase a snack. I think of my time in the Middle East with its errors and learnings. I think of my return to Ireland and the unconsolable sobbing in Smithfield the night after.
Bike accident in Rathgar, and allegiance to the Republic sworn at Dublin’s Convention Centre. Masters degrees and careers, welcomes and goodbyes. The best friends I made, and the enemies I avoided.

This is the pilgrimage of life I chose.