Reflections on a Month Abroad

Glen Coe, Ballachulish

It’s been a long time, dear readers. My previous goal of maintaining a weekly upload schedule quickly fell off the face of the earth as summer rolled in, hot and humid in Dallas’s typical fashion. It appears that my seasonal depression hits during summer, not winter, and nothing ushers me indoors or slams my brain to a screeching halt faster than the overbearing heat and endless scorching sun.

These autumn months have been a blessing—though I still wish I was somewhere cooler. I’ve recently come back from Scotland, where the temperatures ranged from 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit during the brief hours of daylight. I feel like the cold just seeped into my bones while I was away; it made for a comfortable stay in all my bundled layers, but now I fear it’s only made me even more sensitive to heat.

But the weather isn’t what I wanted to talk about. For a while now, I’ve wanted to make a strong return to this blog, and given that I’ve just returned to the States after a month of solo-traveling (for my first time!), what better way to break new ground than reminiscing on what was easily one of the best experiences of my life?

There’s so much I want to say, so if you’ve got the time, grab a hot drink, find a comfortable place to sit for a while—and maybe turn on a Scottish folk playlist to help ease you into the peace I found when I traveled overseas.

A Silent Month

Those of you who are lucky enough to live alone know well that silence is built into your environment. I don’t live alone, so this was really my first time getting to experience that sort of peace and solitude. No cats roaming about, no housemates making idle clatter in the other rooms. Just me and the wind and rain beating against the outer walls of the apartment.

I think I spoke maybe 5-10% of the entire time I was in Scotland. I’m not one to chat it up with strangers on the bus or train, and I’m quiet by nature. I didn’t miss the sound of my voice, nor did I find myself longing for companionship. There were times when I wished my friends were with me, but it was only because I wished they could see what I was seeing in person, too. No amount of photos or videos would ever do justice to the places I explored.

Being alone was easy. I fell right into step with a quiet, lone existence. I know it’s not the same for everyone, and I consider myself grateful to be in a place where my own company isn’t something I wish to escape. If anything, I found a haven within myself that only stretched further outward as the month went by and I grew accustomed to roaming the country alone.

Auldhame Castle, North Berwick

Braveheart

Of course, the trip wasn’t always serene and idyllic. As expected with international travel, I faced a couple hiccups along the way. The first: unexpectedly navigating Edinburgh after hours; the second: a temporarily inoperable phone.

On the night of Halloween, I was out late at a Samhain festival atop Calton Hill, which overlooks much of Edinburgh. The night was full of firelight and dancing, pagan music, and Celtic folklore. Amazing performance—I loved it. The trouble was, I loved it so much that I stayed for the entirety of everything, which meant that I missed the last train of the evening going from Edinburgh to North Berwick, where I stayed through the duration of my trip.

Upon realizing that I’d missed my ride, panic set in. I hadn’t yet figured out how to activate my eSIM, so I was without any mobile data or navigational services. I was in a crowded city of strangers, alone, and it was dark. I didn’t know where I was; I’d only landed in Scotland two days earlier. Eventually, after pacing up and down Princes Street, growing colder by the minute as a light drizzle fell over the city, I found the stop for the night bus heading back to North Berwick. I didn’t get back to the apartment until after 2am, but I made it back—alive and safe, albeit very cold.

A couple weeks later, the simple habit of sliding my phone upside down into my pocket resulted in the USB port of my phone becoming waterlogged. Shoutout to the unpredictable Scottish rain. I kept the phone off to minimize any further damage, but not being able to charge or use it for a time was, to put it shortly, worrisome. In one short afternoon outing to Leith Walk, I lost my GPS, my access to train tickets, and my primary mode of communication when I wasn’t at the apartment.

Luckily, I had my laptop, and after settling a torrent of anxious thoughts, I sat down, opened my browser, and looked up phone repair stores. The nearest one to me, in North Berwick, was all the way back in Edinburgh. However, it was situated just on the far end of Princes Street from where my trusted bus route dropped me off, so even without a GPS on hand, I knew I’d be able to find it. As it turned out, my phone was fine the next morning—so I didn’t even need to take that extra trip back into the city.

Rectifying both of these situations was, in hindsight, simple. But you have to remember: I was alone. No one was there to hold my hand and tell me it would all be okay; no one was there to call me an Uber back to my apartment or lend me their phone until mine was operable again. Only a handful of people even knew I’d left America.

Here, amongst the old twisting roads and alleys of Edinburgh and the remote shores of North Berwick, I was my only guide. And as much as it felt like freefalling at times, I came to trust and rely on myself in ways I’ve never needed to before. It helped that Scotland generally felt safer than anyplace I’d ever been in America, but you get the idea. Going it alone forced me to meet a side of myself I’d never known, and I’m better off for it.

Cutting the Cord

While I was indulging myself in aimless wanderings through the seaside town, marveling at the grandeur of the Highlands, or just people-watching in a local cafe, I found myself reaching for my phone less and less. I wanted to bask in everything Scotland had to offer, be a part of the environment—even if my role was limited to a silent observer. This, coupled with the water-logged mishap in Edinburgh, forced me to finally test out an experiment I’d been postponing for a while: breaking up with my phone.

I started small: reaching for my digi-cam instead of my phone if I saw something pretty I wanted to capture; bringing my Kindle with me on the bus so I could read if I got tired of watching the Scottish countryside blur by; actually adhering to the app timers I set up.

From there, I imposed slightly stricter rules. No phone time between 11pm and 8am. Charge the phone in the living room overnight instead of the bedroom. (My only exception was if I needed an early morning alarm, like I did on the day of my departure.) If I was taking a walk along North Berwick’s shores, I left my phone at the apartment and took only my digi-cam, my wallet, and my keys.

I wasn’t perfect; I definitely defied my own rules a few times, but slowly, they began reducing my screen time until it became somewhat of a game: “How little time can I spend on my phone today?” I compared it to golf, which, coincidentally, Scotland is known for creating. The smaller the number on my screen time monitor at the end of the day, the more satisfied I felt, knowing that I’d really been present–and the more energy I had to stay present.

North Berwick, East Lothian

Filling the Well

Ditching the phone was probably one of the best choices I could have made. While I wanted to share every second of every moment all across my social media—and if you follow my accounts, you know I did share quite a bit of my journey—what I needed far more than clout was something of a realignment of the self.

Remember when I said that summer tends to coax me into hermit mode? This year, it hit harder than summers past. From May to around October, right when I left the States, I was withdrawn and steadily burning out. Any sense of accomplishment I felt for anything I did—including book fairs, completing my latest manuscript, whipping up marketing graphics for Instagram—was short-lived and unfulfilling. Something was off; I just didn’t know what—nor did I try to figure it out.

Ever a creature of habit, I journaled quite a bit in Scotland, wanting to keep another record of my travels while also working through what wasn’t working within myself and how to realign with the person I knew I could be if I invested the time and effort. On November 18th, I reached somewhat of a breakthrough:

“This trip didn’t solve all my problems, but it has reminded me of how and why to love the parts of myself I was beginning to ignore or feel shameful of—my creative passions, my physical health and well-being, my body, my mind. And the reminder that these things are worth loving and nurturing and protecting is enough to give me the motivation to solve my problems myself.”

I started writing again. The feeling of embarrassment that crippled me whenever I thought of my WIP became a thing of the past. That block that wedged itself between me and my will to create slowly crumbled until I found myself torn between exploring more of Scotland’s beautiful scenery and huddling in the apartment with my laptop to capture these ideas before they got away from me. Thankfully, Edinburgh itself is a gorgeous city and peppered with no small amount of coffee shops, offering the perfect balance between “work” and play.

Final Thoughts

None of this would have happened if I didn’t enjoy an immense amount of privilege. In a world where everything grows increasingly more expensive, I’m lucky not to be burdened by monthly rent or utilities. Living with family means that it’s easier for me to save up for long trips like this. Holding a US passport—one of the strongest in the world—means that I can enjoy access to many foreign countries without the hassle of visitor visas or piles of supplemental documentation. It’s a privilege to get to escape for a while.

I think it’s too early to say whether this past month was life-altering, but I do sense that I’ve changed for the better. Life feels a little less heavy, despite how gutted I am to be back in the States. The goals I want to achieve may be far away, but I want to honor the version of myself I recovered in Scotland by not letting the big picture intimidate me into complacency. Life is short. There is no room for fear, no time for regrets.

Something I read a while ago said that living a life riddled with mistakes and hard lessons is far more gratifying than curating a perfect, spotless record because you were too scared of being perceived in your “wrongness” to try anything.

There’s no better or more concise way of putting it, and I’m doing my best to take these words to heart, put them into practice. In the coming months, I’ll be implementing  a few changes to the way I operate on social media. (Keep your eyes peeled for announcements!) Those story ideas that found me in Scotland? I want to wrangle them into an organized collection so that one day, you all can enjoy them, too, and wow—it feels good to have goals again.

If you’ve made it this far, you have my thanks for sticking through the rambling! I doubt any future blog posts will be quite as lengthy, but I make no promises. Those of you who know my writing style know I love to use my words.

Until next time <3

Anchor Close, Edinburgh