The Long Goodbye to Scotland

The problem with having a set date for leaving a place is that "When are you leaving?" becomes a topic of conversation far earlier than you might like it to.  While we knew my contract ended on October 2015, as early as this past April, people we knew in Dundee started conversations by talking about our departure.  They didn't mean to be rude - it was just something to talk about.  And most of it sounded a bit like this:

"So, what are you going to do when your contract ends?"
"Probably go back to the States."
"Don't you want to stay?"
"It's complicated and expensive to stay."
"Oh. But don't you want to stay?"
(Orzechs change subject)

About June, we decided we were definitely going back, but we didn't know exactly to where. So the conversations started to sound like:

"So what are you going to do when you go back?"
""We're going, but we don't know what we're going to do yet. We'll find jobs."
"Why don't you stay?"
(Orzechs change subject)

Finally, after all our lovely summer visitors left in mid-August, we packed all our things and sent them back to Tucson.  By the end of August, Paul had rekindled his relationship with his old boss and workplace and had been offered a job at the foundry, and I had a promising interview as a nutrition program evaluator (which I ultimately got). By September, the conversations started to sound like this:

"Congratulations on your jobs!"
"Thanks."
"So what's next?"
"Well, two cars and a place to live, schools for the girls..all to be accomplished in a couple of weeks"
"Wow. We'll miss you."
"We'll miss you too"
(Orzechs change subject)

Finally, it was the end of September, and it was really time to say goodbye. We packed and repacked our suitcases, and got rid of a lot of things, which is trickier in the UK than the US - the charity shops are small, and they just can't take all your stuff at once.  So we were giving things away to everyone we knew, and slowly carrying things up the hill to the charity shop for the last couple of weeks.  On the last few days, we were hauling things up the hill to the dumpsters near the apartment complexes, because our own bins were full.

We had dinners with friends, and a beautiful afternoon with the Loves, our family-in-Scotland - they were among the first people we met when we moved, and we maintained and built our friendship across two years. I had recruited Sarah Love into Loadsaweeminsingin, and without my knowledge, on my last night of singing, she organized the ladies to sing the Proclaimers song "Letter from America" - the chorus goes "When you go, will you send me a letter from America?" I was almost in tears to have to leave all these lovely singing ladies.  Paul had a last few surfing trips to St. Andrews with his friend Mike, and had a final goodbye trip our to our local pubs - Drouthys and Speedwell - with some of his yoga friends. Audrey went to Brownies on the Thursday night, and all of the sudden, there it was - our two years in Dundee over.  Well, not until after we sat in a lot of traffic going to Glasgow with my wonderful boss Wendy, who helped us bring all our stuff into the hotel and then turned around to head back to Dundee. But then, poof.

The trip back to the States was long - we should have taken the more direct flight rather than go via Iceland - it looks very cool, but we hadn't scheduled a stop.  The three days with my parents in DC felt like vacation - if our last week and all the shared meals in Dundee felt like a cross between Thanksgiving (seeing all the people you love) and a funeral (mourning the loss of people you may never see again), the time in Virginia just felt like Thankgiving. With family. With more family, and with the people we adopted as our family a long time ago (25 years, I guess we are family by now, Townsleys). And then we really moved to the United States - we got in the plane and flew to Tucson, and began adjusting back to life in another country where the driving distances are vast, the refrigerators and washers are huge, and even when it's (occasionally) cloudy and gray, the breezes are still warm.

Stay Tuned.