Trash

I'm in tears walking through security at the Omaha airport after one long and heartbreaking goodbye and all of these TSA agents are looking at me with indifference and annoyance written all over there face, I get on the plane eventually make my way to Newark then finally to Shannon (Ireland), the entirety of my trip being in this surreal state, almost dreamlike; "Is this actually happening?" "No way is this happening." "Oh my god what am I doing???" etc. Finally we land, we shuffle onto a bus, and we drive an hour or so to get to our chilly little cottages that almost feel like home. Now, let me fast forward a bit- it's our first chance walking into Spiddal which according to Emily's fitbit is 1.9 miles away, on this "sidewalk" (footpath) we're walking along and suddenly I see trash on the side of the road. It's shiny, looks like the lid off of some tin can, it had been there awhile, there was some moss growing over it from the rain, the best way to describe it is literally just garbage. My group's ahead of me huffing it to town and I slow a bit and look at this piece of trash, and I realize I have no clue where this piece of trash is from. There's nothing in my own knowledge to compare it too, it's completely commonplace item. This piece of tin is so commonplace in fact that someone just threw it out the window, because there's probably thousands exactly like it- and here I am baffled by this piece of litter in the road. Then it hits me, almost all at once- This is the first time I'm seeing something/learning something new- not learning in a text book, life lesson sense- but learning as in an almost infantile sense of what something is (a cow goes moo, a stove is hot, etc). I'm in someplace completely new, totally different, and I don't know the half of it. I don't even understand what the hell this piece of litter is. I resign to move past it, keep up with the group and explore town. This small piece of trash though- it brought to the pit of my stomach this sense of undertaking (and trust me that makes about as much sense to me as it does you). Something is happening, I don't know what, but I'm sure I will find out in time.