Ironic?

So this is it...my last Friday in Edinburgh, the penultimate 24 hours. I feel beyond weird, and while that doesn't really surprise me, the mix of emotions I'm feeling kind of do. While I wouldn't have called you crazy if you had told me that I wouldn't want to leave Edinburgh, I would have thought it highly unlikely to happen now. For weeks now all I've been able to think about is home: what it will be like, who I will see, what I can do. Home seemed like the thing that I could almost touch, the end-all-be-all, the only place in the world that I wanted to be. Of course that is still the case, but the sheer joy of freedom that I was expecting to feel come the end of my last exam yesterday was quickly replaced with a deep sickness in my stomach. It's the feeling of sadness, of a tad bit of regret, of the feeling one would associate with actually leaving home. Edinburgh has been home for almost five months. I've made it my own in so many ways. I've shopped at the same grocery stores down the street. I've gone to the same gym, I've walked the same paths and hung out with the same friends. Unlike leaving a place after a lengthy vacation, this feels far more personal. And while I'm sure that my lethargy will be replaced with ecstasy once I do get home, for now I feel more sadness than excitement.

It all comes back to that theme of home: what does home mean, and whether or not one can have multiple homes. I feel that I do. As much as I'm attached to the US, to Maine, to South Portland, I feel just as connected to Edinburgh and to Scotland. This is home, and as such, it doesn't really surprise me that I'm feeling reluctant to leave. I feel that the stress of exams was the thing that was pushing me homewards. No matter how much or little they mattered, revising and actually sitting for such things is never fun. And unfortunately, that experience ate away at the last three weeks that I'll ever spend living in Edinburgh. Part of that is my fault, of course. I don't know how to study a little bit, and because of my overall boredom come three weeks ago, it made sense to just jump in head-first, get the material back in my head, and prepare myself as best I could. After finishing all three, I feel like I succeeded at that. Yet committing so much of myself to those exams meant that I couldn't do so for other things, the things that mean the most to me in this place. I was able to walk around and take photos. I was able to watch three seasons of The Wire and enjoy every minute. I was able to joke around and be a kid with my flat mates. But it wasn't what it could have been.

Now it's all done. Exams no longer own me, and as such I've returned to the land of nothing to do. But that isn't a bad thing any more. All of a sudden, I just want to do the things I did a month ago. I want to be able to have more fun times with the guys that I've learned to love. The grand irony of it all is that for so long all I've wanted to do is go home, and now that going home is less than 48 hours away, I want to stay instead. Again, it's theoretically not a surprise. I always have problems with leaving one situation and going to another, especially when I've invested myself heavily in both. Soon I'll be back in South Portland, able to drive, to see friends, to drink real coffee, to move to a new house. But I won't get to sit and watch hours of Sky Sports News. I won't get to drink Stella by the case--that's probably a good thing. I won't get to just be a kid.

Another precipitating factor in me not wanting to go is that I sense that leaving Edinburgh marks the beginning of adulthood. I've turned 21 here. I've finished my Junior year here. When I get home it will be off to do campaign work, to work in the public policy field. Then it will be off to start thesis research, to start my senior year, and ultimately graduate from Bates in a year. That's just a scary chain of events. If I was a kid at all when I got here, I'm sure not one anymore. Yes, I can still joke and act like a kid. But both the growing up that this lifestyle has necessitated, and the impending end of college have made me realize that I'm officially an adult. Thankfully I get some of the comforts of college life for another couple months. But the job search must start eventually. The realization that this is the last summer of just being a kid home from school and that every event at Bates may be the last of this or the last of that. I know that I'm always one who likes to jump from extreme to extreme. It may still be too much to say that I'm not a kid and am officially an adult, but signs definitely point in that direction.

So here's to junior year now done. Here's to getting to go to clubs and play ring of fire. Here's Edinburgh. It's been a crazy journey. While it was not what I expected, it's provided me with a unique opportunity to find myself. I've realized that I'm different in some ways than I had thought to begin with, and that some of my tendencies are actually what I should be doing. I don't like to drink heavily all that much. I'm very stingy with money. I don't laugh enough. I need to relax a bit more. But I'm very good at life so far. These are but a few of the lessons that I've learned here, and maybe it's because this experience has taught me so much about myself, and my world that I'm so reluctant to leave. Maybe it's because I'm scared about what everyone at home will make of me. Will they notice the changes that I see in myself? Are these changes actually real, or are they just figments of my imagination? Time will tell. As for now, I can only enjoy the last few hours, pack my things, and head back to what I know. In the end, it's not that ironic that I don't want to leave...but I'm glad that I don't. All good things must come to and end, and this was definitely good.

The Beautiful Letdown

"It was a beautiful letdown...when I crashed and burned."

These lyrics are definitely more mellow dramatic than my mood right now, but they come from Switchfoot, a band that guided me through a lot of tough times. Even if you're not a big fan of Christian rock--I'm not anymore, but definitely was when I was in middle school--they have some really provocative lyrics that seem to connect to my life still.

The bottom line is that I've reached the end, and not a moment too soon. As my last post reflected, the last month has been a real emotional roller coaster. Coming from an amazing trip, to having the flat to myself, to getting bored of that and immensely lonely, to beginning the process of studying, to freaking out about exams and feeling very under prepared, to today, having finished one exam. Now, for better or worse, the pre-exam freakout has been traded to complete restlessness. First off, I've studied over 85 hours for these exams (3 of them) which is way more than I ever have for any exams in my life. From this comes the grand irony of it all--my grades barely count. Based on my participation and essay grades, I barely need to pass these in order to get the B average I need to have my credits transfer. Combine that with the said amount of prep time, I know I should be fine. Yet until I took my first exam this morning I was completely unsure of myself; in a cold sweat. I had no idea what to expect from a UK exam. It turns out that it wasn't that bad, that I knew what I needed to know, and now I'm a day closer to going home.

Ecstasy was the emotion I felt as I left Adam House this morning. The sun was bright, I was done with philosophy, and all of a sudden the bundle of pre-exam nerves had been substituted with the giddiness of a boy on the last day of school. The problem, of course, is that I have 2 exams to go. But lost in the moment, I walked away in the sunshine, and got all of the little trinkets from the tourist shops on the Royal Mile that I had wanted for so long. Then I ventured back, unsure of what would come next.

What has come next has been a whole range of things. I went from pure bliss, to nervous wreck in regard to the coming exam, to relief that they wouldn't be that bad, to frustration with other things, to boredom, to homesickness, all in the course of a few short hours. That swing basically sums up the last month. Some days I've been elated to be here. Other days my head is home in Maine and nothing can bring me back to the here and now. Others I'm completely absorbed in my work. The bottom line is that there's been too much time as of late. I'm a person who likes to stay busy, for no other reason that it keeps my mind occupied. I'm also a person of bizarre neuroses and obsessions, so needless to say, having all the free time hasn't helped. Either I was obsessed with studying or I was obsessed with working out. Either I was obsessed with all things Scotland, or I was obsessed with the thought of going home. In either case, it wasn't a pretty picture.

But now I've come to the end. 4 hours of exams is all that separates me from summer, but more importantly, it's all that separates me from home (minus the actual travel.) As friends that I've made here start to depart for home, I get the feeling that Dorothy is about to click those ruby slippers. I've been told that going home from being abroad, no matter how analogous the locations may be, is a complete trip, as if a 5 month long dream has ended abruptly. For all the talk of going home, and yearning to be in Maine again, I'm a bit nervous about what I'll find. What will have changed? What changes will people see in me that I'm not that aware about? Will people like the person I've become? What have I missed that I will have to catch up on, or what will I have missed that I will never be able to retrieve? Again, this is the time talking. If I had had my way, and had been busy all this time, I would just go home and deal with the transition once I got there. But instead, it's all contemplation before the reality actually hits.

Yes, this post may have been all over the place, but it definitely reflects my current psyche, let's hope it changes before exam time tomorrow.

An Emotional Roller Coaster

To put it lightly, these last few weeks have been hectic. The grand irony, of course, is that they've been hectic without being busy. Actually, they've been anything but. Since returning from Rome I've been doing very little. Most of my flat mates only returned a few days ago, and it wasn't until last Monday that I actually started revising for exams. At the beginning, having the place to myself, having nothing to do, and just getting to take in the experience of living in Edinburgh was fun and exhilarating. The break neck pace of the trip had left me exhausted and the unstructured time was fun and calming. But as the days wore on, and I felt no nearer to home, nor content with being where I was, the despite started to set in. Why am I still here, I would wonder. Why can't I just make time go faster and finally go home? Being an extrovert also added to the depression. I went days without talking to anyone face-to-face, something that really drains my energy and resolve. Yet I found some good things to do. I went on a glorious walk along a river in Leith; I climbed to Arthur's Seat; I went for runs through Morningside. These definitely broke up the monotony, but I still wasn't content.

Then the flat mates came back, fresh from their holidays, but in need of getting to revising to fend off the impending exams. I decided to follow suit, both because it felt like time to get going, but also because I desperately needed something to do. But this didn't do much to help. Even a week in I still feel like I have way too much time left. The material I'm covering is challenging, but not too challenging. I know that I really only need seven or eight more days to study, but the other option is to go back to doing nothing, which isn't appealing either. So it was back to longing for home--something that won't subside till I get there, no matter how busy I am. I see pictures from Short Term and want to be back at Bates. I hear news from South Portland and just want to get back to what is most familiar. Yet it's not possible--at least not for another three weeks.

With all of this going on, I've been feeling rather empty. Services at St. Giles' Cathedral--a place that I have grown to love--only dull the pain a bit. I didn't want to limp to the finish line like this. I wanted to be really sad to leave Edinburgh, not be thankful to get out. What could I do? It was at this point that my Mom came up with a great idea. "It's free," she said, "to just take your camera and document your favorite places in Edinburgh...the places that you'll miss the most when you're gone." At first I didn't like the idea. I've seen everything, I thought, why do I need to go around again. With that I wrote it off and moved on with my life. Yet after a really exhilarating workout this morning, and seeing that the day was nice, I decided to go for it. I realized that by going around town and snapping pictures of places that I had passed by, or even large landmarks that I had grown used to, I could document my love for this city. It worked.

Over three hours this afternoon I walked all over the city. To the University Campus, Grass Market, and Cowgate. To the Castle, down the embankment to Princes' Street. To St. Andrew Square, Calton Hill and Regent's Street. To Holyrood Palace, the Royal Mile and the Crags. Maybe I should have left more for another day--although I'm sure I'll see a lot of these places again before I go--the day really sparked what needed to be sparked. I realized while I walked Edinburgh's ancient streets just how much I loved this place, and therefore how much I'm going to miss it. Edinburgh brings together thousands of years of history in a way that no other city does. The old and the new are melded together brilliantly--so well at times that you can't tell the difference between walls that have been standing since the 1200s and those that were only built at the turn of the last century. It has culture and a distinct vibe which is unique. It's funky, it's hip, but it's also authentic and real. Sure, there are those cheesy tourist shops, but there are little pubs in claustrophobic closes, and on main streets that ooze culture and life. These are all of the things that I remembered on my walk. It may not make the homesickness go away, but I truly felt attached to this place again. I can truly say that I not only visited Edinburgh, I lived there. I experienced it in a way that only residents can, and for that I will always be thankful. Now it's actually time to study, get through exams, and return home. But home, as I've always said, is where you are, and right now that's Scotland's capital.