I left Dublin in Winter 2013. It's not a photo, I know. It's a screenshot. It's from a short film I shot about myself coming home from college the very first semester. It was really hard and I missed home a lot. I think of all the pictures this one means the most to me. I was so, so emotional towards the end. It was maybe winter, or maybe a mixture of mental disease and nostalgia. I really wanted to come home and as I was there filming every minute of it I still lived through it. I sang in the Concert Hall and lived in a new country and none of it mattered. This was the final gate before I'd have food measured in ounces and AT&T adorning my cell phone. Things I spent 3 months homesick over I was about to cross the sort of imaginary threshold in my head. It was about 5am, or maybe it just felt like it. I didn't sleep all night. I was so sad, and so excited, and can nearly not remember a moment in my life as emotional as when I stood descending that escalator, a semester in the rear-view, a recording SL1 in my palm. I'm certain I cried. I was flying into JFK.

I left Dublin in Summer 2014. I had finished a year of college: a year of Law School in a foreign country. It was the year I didn't think I'd see the end of, but I did. Cabarets and care packages later, a birthday abroad yielded to a trip in London. I took the one photo that became the photo, and got a haircut that became the haircut. And I was really happy, it was warm and sunny and I'd go to the Memorial Day Parade with friends. I'd see the people who mattered the most to me and that would fix the problems. I'd be in a play and watch the World Cup. The summer would be what I wanted really badly all year. Everyone would be back to normal. I'd be at work like I used to be, driving a car, and all of us would be catching up about the fun year. After all, the sun was out, and I had woken up that morning. I was flying into JFK.

I left Dublin in Winter 2014. I spent a semester on the JCR. I found something to do and give my time to at school, a thing I loved. I tried football too and did really well. I'm coming home this time and instead of loathing hearing them talk about their friends, I was gonna talk about the friends I made, the nights I was up till 1am, the stories I had wished happened my freshman year, I made happen my second year. I was feeling excited about where I had been, and where I was going. I met Ross and tried to be there for him like nobody was for me. We watched the Slingbox and played Pong at the Thanksgiving I tried to give everyone. I traveled to Oslo, I saw Europe, I did all these unique things I wasted a year pining over. Classes? I can't say I remember much about them. I was flying into PHL.

I left Dublin in Summer 2015. I finished the year, and my time at Halls, on the JCR, with friends. I passed the torch on, Keelin in that interview was maybe the best decision I made. I drank more, learned more, traveled more, and lived carefree. I had more friends visit me than I could have imagined. This was what college was supposed to be. It was magnificent. I worked, photographed, studied every day in the May sunshine. I spent an entire month locked in my room avoiding bad roommates and staring at Law Review articles, studying cases. Me and my friends made an alliance to get the 2:1, and all of us would study abroad. I never worked so hard. I was sure I had done enough. I packed a return suitcase for Atlanta, not Dublin. I was flying via BOS to PHL.

I left Dublin in Winter 2015. It was supposed to be worse. It was supposed to be Atlanta. I didn't listen to Childish Gambino for months. I pretended to resent my classmates. I ignored the Instagram posts from Indiana. My resolve hardened along with my freezing knuckles as I biked to class along the windy river. I lived in a house with strangers who became best friends. We watched TV together, and bonded, and ate pizza and drank whiskey and trashed our exes. The shower was freezing. I grew up and began to live again, maturely and responsibly and with a purpose more sincere than before. Love bloomed and felt like the panacea of every past hardship. Each night falling asleep on FaceTime with her replaced the bitter memories of what I thought college was. I stood out in the pouring rain that morning before the sun rose to catch a bus to catch a plane to get to you. I was flying into PHL via EWR.

I left Dublin in Summer 2016. We did it and it all worked out okay. Took some more exams to avenge the ones I took last time. I messed around and got published. I threw a party just cause I wanted to. I didn't invite the people I stopped pretending to like. I called the shots and stopped caring about the noise. I lost a roommate and found a best friend. He woke me up the morning Kanye came out singing the Chance verse. I got the internship I never thought I could, and this time I was going to make sure I found my way to DC. I burned the paper in the backyard. I watched a year go by before my eyes and stood at the precipice of the last one I'd ever have before I knew it. I survived again and I was doing great, I really truly was. Smiling on the plane. I was flying into PHL.

I left Dublin in Winter 2016. The Eagles played well, and then poorly. I watched it all on campus on a projector in a 400 year old castle I lived in. I played tennis in the sunshine with Matt. Then I walked up next door to his apartment for a night with the ND kids. I played soccer under floodlights on slippery turf with strangers just because. I designed for football and played as a veteran starter, a leader in the locker room. I saw the things back home and didn't miss them. They filmed movies outside my ivy covered window. It was a place free of the past. I was winning, and really happy in spite of it. I played Playstation. I walked to class over the cobbles. I got bagels and loved fall. I tried to register 50 people to vote. I made my name heard on the big stage. I played GTA with Anderson Paak on the speakers. I improvised. An election happened, but America was my home. Obama's photo was still up at Customs. It was bittersweet after how far we'd come, to be heading back. I didn't throw a party once a month, but I did three hours before the flight, it worked out in the end. I lied about the dates. I was flying into PHL.

I left Dublin in May 2017. I came back on steroids not able to sleep watching every pink sunrise counting the days. I got it together and threw myself at the edge of the cliff. Ain't seen rainbows in the sky since college. Civ played Risk during the Super Bowl. There was this ball, and this attic, and a beer poured into a thirty foot pipe. She visited and I never thought she would; Easter always was a funny day. My grandparents visited and I spent the most earnest time showing them everything I loved and seeing their proud smiles. I sat in the warm kitchen sun-drenched alone looking out the window to the Westin with a Federal Judge in Los Angeles and a Facebook tab up to turn procrastination into motivation watching the rest of them in caps and gowns. I took my last exam, ever. I missed a question. I walked out with Matt at the end and we just hugged in front of the Campanile and we did it. Matt wasn't there in the end, nobody came, not to football either, and we ended up losing, I scored. We ate East Wall pizza in his Dad's hotel one last time. I got published, again, for real, and it was incredible. I didn't take this photo in May 2017. I didn't take many. My camera was packed up tight in a bag overflowing past airport limits. My cellphone was destroyed a week earlier. I'd leave the house free and walk and take photos enjoying the solitude and finality in the gorgeous May weather. I said my goodbyes. I sat in my empty house with curry and Hennessy. I posted the Moon photo I took a week ago and that was it. I was sleep deprived and watched the last scene of Brooklyn on repeat. I'm certain I cried. I was flying into EWR.

I went to Dublin in November 2017. It was brief. I said hello, and goodbye, and goodbye for good. I tried to close the door on a chapter and realized it'd been shut since May. She surprised me again. I got my turn, in my cap and my gown, with my photos, to celebrate my degree that I earned. A parchment memorializing those four years, those eight photos of a Customs sign. I took one more, on film, for good measure. The last time I'd see the sign in that light and the first time I'd see it in this light all in 1/30th of a second. I was flying home.