Why'd your hair grow so long...

Time is so slippery. And it never, ever stops.
Today I was telling my coworker that I am leaving Ireland in August, and she was so surprised... and her surprise tugged on me to wish to stay for much, much longer. How has 7 months already gone past so fast?
I've begun to meet some new friends from USIT, and hearing them say they arrived in Ireland a week and a half ago is so strange. I feel so old and experienced in my Irish lifespan... (yearspan:).
So much has happened since coming here, I have this deep desire to gather it all up - all the shades of green, all the sights my eyes have been filled with, all the excess minutes on the bus, all the smells and failed attempts to be brave and all the small victories and tears and bursts of laughter and seal them all away so I can come back to it all whenever I need to. I feel years older, not just months, and I'm wondering how it will be to integrate back into being a Seattlelite, into being a daughter, into having only Christian friends again.
I often (not just in Ireland) have this fear that I'm wasting time, or not being in the place that God wants me to be, or that I'm not able to do enough in my lifetime for Him. But as soon as I declare that, it also occurs to me that God is so much bigger than anything I could screw up (hah!), and that the beauty of Grace is that it can only be undeserved. I am so undeserving.
Some of my best times of thinking is while waiting. Today I waited for 35 minutes for the 66a bus to retrieve me. Life is all about practicing, yeah? So, I have been practicing at welcoming people into my life, and at saying good bye. I'm practicing at being a good employee, and at not allowing others' attitudes or tone of voice to change my performance. I'm practicing patience, especially with myself.