Glaswegian Growth!

I'm guessing anybody reading this blog is friends with me on Facebook (except for Mom: HI MOM!) and so this entry might be redundant, since I've posted a version of it over there. But as the blog is also a public journal of sorts, it felt useful to plant this marker here; as a bonus, it means my dad will see it, since he's sworn off of Facebook until after the election due to Trump's nomination. (Have I mentioned that my dad is the best dad? It's true, sorry Other Dads. Your day will come! [Your day will never come, but keep trying, it's what your own dad would want if you too had the Best Dad])

ANYHOW, introspective post after the jump as usual! Read ON, cats n kittens, or skip it because what do you care?

I'm a work in progress, but I'm also making progress, is the tl/dr of this entry.

While I certainly hope I have much more growing and learning to do – ever pushing for more kindness, more empathy, more peace within and without – today felt like a very, very good milestone on this weirdzo little journey I’m on. That’s what today’s post is about.

All day long, my plans were a bit off track: I got up later than I’d planned, missed breakfast, arrived at a distillery just too late for the tour I'd planned around and had to wait for a later, more expensive one. Had to scrap a plan to visit The Lighthouse. Three spots I stopped for a meal were closed. A museum that I’d been looking forward to was… also closed. And eventually I missed the last train back to Sarah and Mark’s flat.

Typing that up, it's kind of: small, simple, easy. Made-up problems. The thing is, last year, in the thick of an insane amount of stress, anxiety, and depression, small things like this - smaller than this - threw me off a cliff and I had no sense of how to climb back up it. Faced with the knowledge of how tenuous my financial situation was, how precarious my academic progress felt, eventually how precarious my marriage felt, these little failures or missteps felt debilitating, an in-the-moment confirmation that Things Really Are Spiraling Out Of Control. I have a sense memory of how helpless and frustrating that felt. 

But you know – today, this was all fine. Being in the world was enough – every dopey setback and pointless 30 minute side trek was just A Thing That Happened. I didn't need to be in control of anything; failures were funny little detours. And somehow, even amidst all the misfires I never lost the sense of Glasgow being a special place, someplace that instinctively seems right to me. It was now – though it has not always been – easy to see the day through the prism of all the moments of joy and discovery and fun rather than the bits that didn’t go off just as I thought they would. That feels like a core part of myself that I’m getting back, and it’s great to find it there again.

And the day ended beautifully: sampling Scotch whisky with two fantastically lovely Canadians (Francis and Amanda) who asked to share my table at the crowded, totally superb Pot Still. They turned out to be generous, thoughtful conversational partners. They’re just a couple of days into their own travels, touring a ton of distilleries in Scotland before hopping over to the continent for a bit more travel, and had much to say not just on whisky but on travel, on Trump and American politics as viewed from Up North, on how we organize our lives, and much more. They were superb, and the decision to have one more dram with them was well worth my inadvertently missing the last train home.

And that’s the thing: I missed the train, but it meant I had a beautiful walk home with barely a car on the road. My lunch plans fell through (twice!) but that meant I got to see an adorably polite French Kristen Bell trying to negotiate for Indian food with no spices while a horrified British woman two tables over tried to lecture her – entirely out of concern – on what you must expect with Indian food. My museum was closed, but that meant I got to inadvertently see a horde of Glasgow Uni students rushing nervously to final exams in their Harry Potter-esque classrooms. My distillery tour was delayed and a bit more pricey, but it meant that I got to know my guide and chat about how he and I came to where we are now. (It also led to a few extra tastes, and the Pot Still recommendation that led me to my evening with Francis and Amanda.)

And somehow, with patience, the love and support of friends, and the world-expanding work of this trip, I am finding my way back to who I like to be. And to a mode of experiencing the world that insists on joy and possibility. It feels good. I’m excited to keep building that muscle as I tumble and flail through these coming final weeks of the trip. Wah, but also hoo, y’know what I mean?