Moving to Scotland was a Journey

I pushed two of my suitcases in front of me and pulled one behind me as I walked through the sliding doors of the Glasgow International Airport. My backpack was hanging heavily off my back. I never had before brought this much luggage with me somewhere, but I was spending the next year or more in Glasgow, Scotland completing my master’s degree. I was going to need everything in my luggage.

The leading up to this next chapter in my life was a messy one and something that definitely didn’t happen overnight.

I was twenty-four years old at the time and was obsessed with this idea of not settling down and making sure I lived my twenties to the fullest which was the pact I made with myself when I was twenty years old.

As we all know life doesn’t always go as planned. I used to imagine myself as a twenty-two-year-old fresh out of college prancing around New York City living in an apartment with my best friend with plenty of other friends around just like I was a character in Friends. Or I imagined my twenty-three-year-old self living off a backpack and vibing to a beachy lifestyle in New Zealand, Australia, or Hawaii.

Now I was twenty-four and neither of those things have happened. The New York City dream hadn’t happened because I realized I wanted to travel before I settled into a career. The backpacking didn’t happen because of a combination of Covid and homesickness.

When Covid first happened, I was in the middle of my first year of post-grad. I was doing a gap year and was a typical post-grad working at a ski resort in Park City, Utah spending my time journaling my existential crises, trekking across a ski slope, trying to snowboard once, or looking like a fish out of water in the mixture of fur coats and designer bags that dominated the main street where my friends and I cringed at the overpriced, short cocktails.

The resort closed for the remainder of the winter season, and they laid off their seasonal workers which were me so I hopped on a flight back home to small-town Illinois. Thus, I entered the rigorous journey of what I wanted my next step to be in life. It was a process of living at home for the next year and a half.

In the fall of 2020, I applied for a master’s program at the University of Strathclyde which was something that I always considered my pipe dream. It was never something that I actually thought would happen. I got in two weeks after I sent my application in which I knew I needed to get my life in gear.

During that time at home, I woke the heck up. Even though I did wake up, it was after I broke. And I broke again. And again. And again. It’s when I realized that my life or twenties wasn’t going to be a TV sitcom. It’s when I realized not every weekend was going to be the weekend of my life. It’s when I accepted that life wasn’t going to turn out the way I always thought. I have a great freaking life, but it didn’t mean everything wasn’t going to fall into place in every way I intended it to be.

I turned twenty-four like a lot of people did during the pandemic and entered my mid-twenties. I was living at home still, was still looking for a job, and hadn’t made a lot of friends at home yet. All my other friends lived far away. I had already been accepted to grad school at this point so I knew hopefully where I was going to be in a year. I was just struggling with the process of how I was going to get there and figuring out how I was going to live my life during the year leading up to it. I had a nice birthday with my family, and it was a nice ring into my mid-twenties eating Papa John’s pizza. Looking back, I felt as if I have gone through so many different seasons of life during twenty-four.

Two weeks into my twenty-four-year-old life, I started a new job as a teacher’s aide at my old high school. I decided to commit to living at home for the year, and honestly, I cried about it so much. Always remember it’s okay to cry and be sad even if you knew you made the right decision.

I started my new job, and eventually got another job at a large hardware store to save more money for grad school and moving out of my parent’s house. I got to know people at both jobs then I started to have more of a social life and make friends.

Honestly, the next months felt like a time-lapse through a movie. You know in a movie when the main character is going through her rising action to the climax, music is playing in the background and there are a bunch of clips mixed together where she is trying to achieve whatever the storyline is.

When I was working both jobs, volunteering with the high school girls track team in the spring, and trying to write as much as I could because writing is my ultimate goal, I felt as if I was in the time-lapse. I would think when I had to wake up at 6 am every day during the week because I’m not a morning person at all that this would be worth it. I was going after my dream of going to grad school.

Eventually, the end of May hit, and my job at the school ended as well as the track season did so it was just working at the hardware store and living my best summer life which is what one of the previous articles is about. I entered another season of life just working at the hardware store then in September when I worked my last day realizing I made it. I did what the uncertainty I had back when I first moved home, unemployed, and not knowing how I was going to get myself to grad school in a world of uncertainty.

The next thing, I knew I was hopping on a plane to Glasgow, Scotland to start the next chapter of my life where I walked through the sliding glass doors leading into my next phase of life.

I made it to my apartment building that was going to be my home for the next year. The apartment was on a busy street and was a very easy walk to the city centre. I started to make friends and was grateful that people were eager to make friends. I had already accepted that I’m not a girl gang type of girl and having a huge group of friends is not always the most realistic so I went into making friends with no expectations and just ready to make some memories. I have made some good friends here which has been great.

I realized I had entered the dream of living in a city that I have had for so long. A lot of people’s stories were that they were from smaller towns and had moved to Glasgow to be in a bigger city and live the city life. I was living in a city where people moved to escape small-town life. Glasgow may not be New York, but it’s still a city just much smaller. I was living the city life of taking the public transportation systems either the train, subway, or bus. I was going out to bars or clubs with the ability to walk or Uber home. There were endless amounts of restaurants, bars, or coffee shops to be eaten and drank at. Moving to a city life didn’t happen as soon as I thought it would, but it happened and honestly, it makes me happy even on the hard days.

I’m grateful for the journey I have been on to bring me to where I am now. When I first found out about the graduate program I am in now, I was sitting on my twin bed when I was living and working in Alaska the summer right after graduation. I was scrolling through my laptop for graduate programs in the UK as a lonely post-grad, I copied and pasted Strathcldye’s website URL to a Google doc labeled, ‘Gap/Goals.’ There have been many parts of the journey of falling down too many times, adulting knocking me back on my butt, and too many tears to count. Throughout the different stages of my existential crisis, I had graduate school in the UK in the back of my head. Thanks to everyone who helped me get here. I would be lost without you and I’m forever thankful for you.

So all I have to say for now is:

Maybe dreams really do come true.