Edinburgh

The first time I went to Edinburgh, I stayed on the floor of my former RA’s flat that she shared with a group of strangers. We got along because she bought me beer and let me break the rules at Baker in exchange for information about my best friend, A.J., upon whom she had a major crush. By pimping out A.J. (not LITERALLY) I was able to score us free accommodations in Edinburgh for a long weekend.

I was nineteen, studying abroad in the spring of my sophomore year. We arrived late at night in February. It was raining and cold, and we had the start of a plague that would linger for over a month. We came out of Waverly station, saw the castle, and I was in love, at home in a place that I was seeing for the first time.

I didn’t take full advantage of Edinburgh that trip. I remember drinking a lot of overpriced test-tube shots on a pub tour and talking the RA off the ledge in the bathroom when A.J. flirted with someone else at the bar. I did make really sophisticated decisions while shopping, however: a packaged, whiskey-flavored condom that I later glued to my scrapbook when I got home.

That scrapbook is EM-BAR-RASS-ING.

I had my quarter-life crisis when I was 23, a few weeks after being accepted into a doctoral program. Dyngus talked ourselves into a year abroad, a year in Edinburgh, and, after much drama and the last-minute advocacy of the man who would become my major professor, I was given a deferment and free reign to take a year off of graduate school.

THEN I got scared: I was going to be behind everyone in my program. My parents would never get over it. I was going to have to ask them if I could move home for a few months to save money. I was walking away from a sweet assistantship and two jobs. I would probably end up homeless. ALMOST everyone thought it was a bad idea.

Not my grandmother. My grandmother thought it was a great idea and for that I will always be grateful.

And, defying all logic, I also thought it was a great idea, but I didn’t know why. That move was the riskiest decision I’d ever made.

I worked two miserable jobs in Wichita, one overnight in a group home where I had to deal with a lot of plumbing issues created by grown men. I’ll leave you to speculate. The other was at a live-in drug and alcohol facility directed by a seriously mentally-ill woman who used to call me crying late at night. I earned every magic bean I was paid.

We moved to Edinburgh in early December, stayed in a hostel with a broken window and nearly got pneumonia. We got a flat on Christmas Eve and ate canned spaghetti for Christmas dinner. The night after we moved in, our neighbors called the police citing “hysterical laughter” (fair) and another neighbor yelled at us for using her rubbish bin (unfair). We frequently embarrassed ourselves, in a myriad of ways (Cockburn street is pronounced co-burn) and told people we were Canadian. We saw charming, almost unbelievable things (like a man dressed like Sherlock Holmes) and frustrating things (like hooliganism) and hysterical things (like the time Andrea got solicited by a 12 year old.)

We made some of our dearest friends, who I get to see in just a couple of days.

We had crappy jobs that made us either miserable or deliriously happy, depending on the day. We didn’t act like tourists. I joined a book club. We had a local quiz night. We travelled. We fought. I threatened to kill a twelve year old who threw a snow ball at me. We found nachos after a three-month search and almost cried. Shannon had a line on some Ro-Tel. We drank a lot. Sometimes I walked eight miles and didn’t even think about it.

I fell in love for the first time. Then a second time. It was all very dramatic.

The second love moved to America to live with me. We got married four years later.

I volunteered and did counseling with people who were very culturally different from me. I nearly stayed, going as far as sitting in a real-estate office with a lease in front of me. I lived broke. Really broke. I asked a couple of people out.

I took risks. I laughed AND cried, mostly laughed. Once I locked myself in a bathroom to get away from Andrea and Autumn. They will give you a different version of that story.

I was the most adventurous, least-stressed version of myself I’ve ever known, and, for all these reasons, but that especially, those nine months in Edinburgh were a watershed for me. I still miss that Robyn, and look for her every time I travel, but especially in Edinburgh.

I’ll let you know if I find her again.