It takes me a long time to rip the Band-Aid off. Sometimes, I am all for new experiences, new ideas, different perspectives, and new challenges. I'm a high school teacher. Just three weeks ago, 131 freshmen walked into my classroom, and I wasn't worried. I've been doing it for years, and while the beginning of each school year is different, it is also very familiar.
Not braking while going down a big hill on my road bike, plowing through single-track on my mountain bike, knowing that keeping my speed up will make it less likely I'll crash, and getting on that skateboard with my nieces after 20+ years of not skating was scary. I waited and agonized and hesitated and was reluctant to take that risk. And then I did it. In each circumstance, what was my reaction? "Wait. That's it? This? This is what I was so afraid of? Well. That's kind of embarrassing."
I have felt the same way about travel. I've only traveled to places our family agreed upon, like "Field of Dreams" in Iowa, Kentucky horse country, the Shaker Villages in KY, and Marine City, MI. To visit my sister and brother-in-law, I have been to Boston, MA, Raleigh, NC, Stamford, CT, Lexington, TN, Atoka, TN, Edwardsville, IL, and Tucson, AZ. They have lived in a few more places than that, but those are the locations I have been to. I have only lived in Green Bay, WI, except for three semesters I lived in a dorm in Stevens Point, WI, about 75 miles away.
Getting a Passport and leaving the US, and potentially leaving North America seemed very exotic and not in line with midwestern practicality. Only the wealthy or the people who weren't satisfied with beautiful Wisconsin went on those kinds of trips. In elementary school I cried my eyes out because a friend was on a trip to Mexico when an earthquake occurred. (Their family was nowhere near the epicenter, but with little sense of geography at that age, I was sure they must have been swallowed whole by the earth, never to be seen again.)
My travel Band-Aid started to peel an edge when my sister began reading and listening to Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" books. (And watching the Starz series with Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser and Caitriona Balfe as Claire Randall/Fraser.) My sister has had jobs at McDonald's and a sub shop in high school, as a B&B employee, as a restaurant server (where she met my brother-in-law, a fellow employee), a credit counselor, a teacher's assistant, a substitute teacher, a clothing store employee, a high school math teacher, has two bachelor's and a master's degree, is the mother of three girls, and recently at the age of 50, completed an associate's degree in carpentry. She started her own business, and works most hours at a business that restores, repairs, and replaces windows in historic houses. She also knits, weaves, and is beginning to learn how to make stained glass pieces. So, it was no surprise that in all of her free time, she began to investigate and learn about Scotland.
Growing up, Sherlock Holmes, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the James Herriot books (All Creatures Great and Small) were required reading in our house, as well as absorbing the excellent British crime dramas, mysteries, masterpieces, and comedies that were on A&E and PBS. England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were places that we had watched and read about from a young age, so wanting to travel there was a quiet desire I had, but it never emerged from that round door in the sandy hill with the knob right in the middle very often. Until my sister brought it up. Then, it made sense.
"Going to Scotland" was a phrase tossed back and forth for a while, with my sister being more serious about it than I was, but eventually, it started to take on a more legitimate tone. So, once it was discussed and worked out that it was possible, the planning she had been doing became an agenda, not just time spent playing around on travel websites.
Having saved up a few thousand dollars with Acorns, a "round-up" investment app that is tied to my debit card, I had most of that sum transferred to my checking account, and that turned into our plane tickets. ORD to DUB, and DUB to EDI on Aer Lingus flights. (Buying the tickets on the Aer Lingus website saved a considerable sum, as compared to buying on Kayak.) Having received my Passport a few weeks earlier, and seeing the financial dent airfare from Chicago to Edinburgh made in my financial status, I couldn't help but feel a little electrical current flow up my spine, and giggle with my sister over the fact that...WE WERE GOING TO SCOTLAND!
A Cross of St. Andrew went up on my Facebook page that night, and pipers playing "Scotland the Brave" may have been heard around the house. My co-teacher came into the room at school and asked the next morning, "Are you playing bagpipe music to celebrate your plane tickets?" Yes. Yes I was.
Now I had an international trip to plan for. Reading the rules and regulations about bag size and weight had to be agonized over. A new suitcase was purchased, because my old one was over the size limit by 1.5 inches. I bought a WANDRD travel backpack that I just about sold because it was going to be three inches too tall, only to have it suggested that I get a cinch strap and not fill the top of it so it could be scrunched down. I forget who offered that advice, but it saved me further angst and money. Thank you, whoever you are.
I gradually bought necessities over the next few months. A spare bed became my Scotland planning center. Most of my life is cluttered and in shabby disarray, but I was going to be organized for this trip, no matter what. For the most part, it turned out that way.
The school year came to a close, warm, summer days were upon us, and a keen sense of anticipation was building. I attended a concert of a favorite band a few days before we left, and had a wonderful time with friends in Madison, WI. Once we got home, though, the sails were pulled in and practice packing began. I was ready.
