You Can Travel the World, but You Can't Escape Yourself
The day I got escorted out of Ireland's oldest library
Wherever you go, there you are.
I first heard it in a yoga class. Now I keep learning it the hard way, and I can’t seem to escape it, or myself.
Because yes, last week, I did, in fact, get us escorted out of one of the world’s greatest libraries.
And if I must admit it, I am shamelessly proud of myself for it.
We approached The Old Library at Trinity College Dublin as naive travelers, completely unaware you had to buy tickets and book a time. For once in my life, this trip had no itinerary. We’d come to Ireland for a wedding, an extraordinary one. A few bucket list items: the Cliffs of Moher, Guinness. Beyond that, The Old Library was the only other thing on the list.
It never occurred to me a library required tickets.
When they told us the next available tour was several hours later, I looked at my husband and said, well, wherever there’s an entrance, there’s an exit. Let’s go find it.
Dave is the rule follower. I told him to follow my lead.
And that he did.
Because when someone tells me I can’t, I don’t take it at face value. I turn it into oh, yeah? Let me prove to you that I can.
I told the guard I was looking for my mother, the ticket holder. She was not, in fact, there, or in Ireland at all. He was kind enough to believe me, which is the reason my husband continues to pray for me, and let us up the steps.
There it was, in all its glory. The heads of all the literary greats, capstoning each aisle. The shelves themselves mostly empty; the library is under reconstruction. (Which for some reason made me feel slightly better about my little white lie.) I walked around. Took a few photos, and asked Dave to take a few more for me.
He was visibly uncomfortable. Stiff as a board. My poor Catholic husband. In the silence of that grand barrel-vaulted Long Room, with only the faint whispers of tourists, it was as though I could hear him quietly reciting “forgive us our trespasses” over and over as he made his way past each of the famed marble busts.
The library also holds the original Guinness harp, alongside the university’s oldest books. To round out our nefarious break-in, we started toward the harp, past the exit stairs we’d climbed on the way in. Just then Dave noticed an older couple leaving, turned, and said, let’s follow behind them. She looks old enough to be your mother. The guard will be none the wiser. I looked at him, I’m sure with an eye roll, and carried on with my quest.
Just as we laid eyes on the harp, the guard laid eyes on us. With a knowing look, he pointed to the stairs and ushered us directly down and out. Dave, with his tail between his legs and me with my head held high.
For the record, we did make a donation at the library gift shop. I am not a conscienceless bandit.
It’s not lost on me that I got kicked out of a library at a university I could never have gotten into in the first place.
But travel just goes to show you. You can never truly escape who you are.
And it’s not just travel. When I started on Substack, the plan was a lifestyle blog. Travel, aesthetics, the curated stuff. From the very first piece, what came out was something else. A turn inward. A deeper dive. Of course it did. Wherever you go, there you are. I have always been interested in understanding myself more deeply.
Here’s the thing, though.
In the moment, my reaction came from what was already wired. I didn’t pause long enough to understand what was driving me to the exit. I just started walking. Dave reluctantly in tow, but curious enough to stick with me. He’s also keenly aware of my instinct to break rules and wasn’t about to challenge it in the midst of the library square buzzing with scholars who held the air of “I belong,” where we clearly didn’t.
It was only later, only when I sat down to write this, that I had to do the double-click. To ask why I couldn’t just take no at face value. Why my brain doesn’t hear “you can’t” and stop. It hears it and goes hunting for the way in.
And I know exactly where it comes from.
You cannot leave the dinner table until you eat that entire fish. Head, eyes, and all.
I know my dad’s reading this. So. Thanks, Dad. You’re the reason I became a stubborn rule breaker.
I don’t know what he was trying to prove. The fish was larger than my plate, though in fairness it was probably a sardine, but that was also before the days of his sobriety, so who knows. All I recall is that I sat there and must have thought: I’m not going to grow roots in this chair. Eventually they’ll get tired enough to want their own beds. And if I wait long enough, I’ll leave this table without eating a single bite.
So I sat. And I waited. And I left, fish untouched.
Something got wired that night when I was just eight years old. When someone says you can’t, there is always a way in which you can.
Decades later, it walked me up the stairs of The Old Library.
I didn’t decide to be that person at the entrance. I already was. The deciding, the seeing, only came after.
And that’s the part I’ve actually been working on. Not just since I started writing. For a long time now. Getting to know my parts. The stubborn one. The analytical one. The one that reverts to a child at a dinner table without noticing she’s done it.
We all have them. The people pleaser. The one who needs to be right. The one who keeps the peace and calls it kindness.
We weren’t born knowing an apple was an apple. Someone showed us. We learned it. And anything learned can, in theory, be unlearned.
But only if you can catch it in the act.
That’s the work. Seeing the part show up. Oh, there it is again. And understanding where it came from. Some of mine I like. Some of them I’m proud of (I am a damn good organizer). And some of them get in the way of being a good partner, a good parent, a good human. Those are the ones I’m still tracing back to the root.
I’ll never escape myself.
But maybe that was never the point. Maybe the point is to finally see it, the part that walks to the back door before I’ve even decided to, and ask where it came from.
So here’s my curiosity, beyond the travel: what part of you shows up when you’re not looking? The spirited one. The one that craves being seen. The one that needs to be liked, to belong.
When does it show up?
And do you know yet where it was wired? Please share. I would love to learn from each of you.
Always EDITing,
Leslie
P.S. A few frames from the rest of our day in Dublin.
We started at Guinness, the self-guided Stoutie tour winding up through the building. For 170 years they didn’t advertise; the beer did the talking. When the family finally agreed to it, there was one rule: the advertising had to be as good as the beer and they proved it to be. They let you sample, then they let you taste. We had our own selfies poured into the foam, then climbed to the Gravity Bar, the round room with the 360 view of the whole city.
A picture-perfect day, the kind Ireland doesn't hand out often. We walked the entire city. Split the G more than once. We found our way into a whiskey bar and even ate Shepherd's Pie. (If you find your way to Dublin, The Ivy has one that's worthy of every bite.)
I don’t regret a minute of it. Including the break-in.
P.P.S. I am still working on the piece that gets to the root of all my parts. That journey has its own story. One that is taking time. In the meantime, I just arrived in Africa. The next few Edits will be from this extraordinary part of the world. Stay with me.
How are you wired? What drives you? I’d love to know. Are you a rule breaker? Ruler follower? Fellow aspiring CIA Agent? Organizer? Planner? Casual observer? The list is longer than space allows. Drop your most beloved part below. Let’s discovery through each other.
Cheers to breaking the rules. Not sure I’d have the ovaries for that heist. But I love that you do.