Irish Rover
Good morning, my Lovelies, and happy Saturday to you all! I hope you all have exciting plans for your weekend and that you make the most of whatever time you are able to devote to friends and family. I know I already made a post this week, but as I said, I'd had many different topics that I had considered for it. So, lucky you, you get a bonus blog! (I can hear the cheers of celebration as they go up around the world!)
For years I've wanted to do one of those ancestry or DNA kits. Well, I finally took the leap a few weeks ago, put out the extra money, and got myself a 23andMe kit. I opened that bad boy, read the directions, re-read the directions, then went for it. I don't know if I had ever been so excited to spit before. I sealed up that tube, popped it in the mail, and walked out of the post office with the strangest feeling. I was excited but gracious was it odd knowing that I'd just mailed spit.
The wait began. Now, don't ask me why, maybe I just needed confirmation that the process had begun, but I checked the tracking on my package an hour after it was mailed. (Maybe I just have that level of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?) Luckily for me, my post office had already scanned my package in and it showed on my app as being in transit. I breathed a sigh of relief and then thought, "Now what?"
I've never been a very patient person and knowing that I was in a holding pattern for the next three to four weeks while my sample was received, processed, tested, logged, and reported, was a struggle for me. I did somehow manage to go for an entire week before I checked the app again. Then another and another.
This past week I finally received notification that my results were ready. I opened the app and began reading, fascinated at all the information to be gleaned from a tiny bit of saliva. Now, while it was fun for me to read about the things my body is pre-disposed to like, my muscle composition, my alcohol tolerance, and even my Misophonia (Yes, I have it. I absolutely cannot tolerate hearing people chew. Background noise is necessary for me or I will have to leave. If it is bad enough, I might be tempted to punch you in the face.), it was my ancestry composition that I was truly interested in.
You see, I've been told all my life that there was no way that I had Irish in my DNA, or if I did, the percentage would be so tiny that it would be almost undetectable. Why was this important to me? I've always been drawn to Ireland. I am and have been desperate to visit there. It is almost as if there's this calling to go there, to go home.
I long to see all the green, to visit the coast, to marvel at the castle ruins, and to share a pint or two at a local pub. I want to hear the music and dance a céilí. I've just always felt that if I ever got the chance to travel there, that I would be returning to my roots and that I would find kindred spirits when I got there. So what were my results?
I am 99.9% Northwestern European with 87.7% of that being Irish and British. As it turns out, I hail from County Galway, Ireland and Greater London, United Kingdom. So to those of you who doubted my Irish heritage? Póg mo thóin. (I really hope that reads "kiss my ass." I mean...how do we know if Google translate has it correct or not?)
I can't begin to tell you what it has meant to me to get the results that I did. (Although I did have to laugh at the comment my friend made about me being "glow in the dark white." I mean, she's not wrong!) One of these days I'm going to make it to Ireland and I can't wait to experience all that awaits me there.
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