Dublin and I are going on a break.

A Christmas break, to be exact, but a break nonetheless. And while I can’t even begin to name all the ways that Dublin has helped me to grow as a person, I know it’s time for us to part. She’s really pushed me out of my comfort zone, taking me to new places and forcing me to try new things. I’m grateful for Dublin. Really, I am. I’ve fallen in love with Dublin, but… Dublin isn’t mine to keep.

She’s her own person, and even though I’ll be back in a few weeks, I know it’s time for me to see some new cities. And I imagine Dublin will be seeing some new people as well. That’s part of her nature, a city full of new people who will say they fell in love with her just as I have. People who will say she changed their lives. And I’m happy for them — really, I am — because the gifts I’ve received from Dublin throughout the course of our relationship are things everyone should have. But Dublin never really loves you back. Not in the way you want her to, anyway.

She’s too fierce, too independent. She takes lovers but never takes commitments, and I think that’s the hardest part of getting to know her. Dublin will introduce you to her streets, her poets, her urchins and her junkies. She’ll let you wander along the Liffey all day and in the afternoon she’ll kiss your wrists with pigeon feet. She’ll send you to sleep at night with the sound of drunks and the smell of smoke from the Guinness factory.

She’ll get you wrapped up in her flickering street lights and busker music. She’ll take everything you thought you knew about her and the world and flip it on its head. You’ll be mad and confused and maybe even disappointed — but you'll be so in love with her imperfections that you'll barely notice.

But when you go to take a picture of this beauty, it won’t be there. And Dublin will never say she loves you back.

Dublin’s not a city you can bring home to your parents. She’s too wide, too loud and too unruly. She does as she pleases and even when you think she’s taken a liking to you, she’ll see to it you fall a euro short on bus fair in the rain. But It’s her indifference to you that makes the whole affair worthwhile. Dublin forces you to grow.

So I’ve promised her that when I come back, I won’t be jealous. I won’t shit talk her new lovers on Grafton Street or Temple Bar. I won’t act like I already know her better than anyone else. Dublin has a million sides and I’m lucky if I even got to see ten of them. My love for her was not ownership, and I need to understand that for as many hot nights we shared, she will always leave me cold in the morning. I am not a part of her.

She is a part of me.