I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane (Reprise)

It's official: in less than 24 hours, I'll be on a plane back to Birmingham.

Well, let me amend that statement. In less than 24 hours, I'll be on a plane to Newark, which will then lead to a plane ride to Nashville, which will end with a three-hour drive home to Birmingham. By the time I get reacquainted with my dog and my bed, it will probably be pushing 11 PM, which will feel like 5 AM.

I have a job interview at 9 AM CDT the next morning. That's 3 PM BST, but suffice it to say I'll be knocking back the Coke, tea, coffee, and anything else caffeinated that I find around the kitchen. I have a vague idea where I'm going for said interview, but I'll be driving again for the first time since the New Year, and on the correct side of the road.

This should be interesting.

I have a voice audition the next day, plus a theoretical pedicure (depending on my scheduling), and then we're off to the beach for a long weekend. It's been too long since I've been to Gulf Shores. The last time I was down, Jen and I made the drive to escape Birmingham's lousy New Year's celebrations, and the sand felt like cold cement. Since the daytime highs over there have been in the nineties or above for the last few weeks, I expect things will be quite a bit warmer. (It's always interesting to look at the MSN forecasts and realize that Edinburgh's daytime high is ten degrees cooler than Birmingham's nighttime low.) Of course, seeing as I got a sunburn last week from sitting outside at lunchtime on our one seventy-degree day, Gulf Shores could be a bit on the painful side. Maybe the hotel sells SPF 60...

As you can see from the photographs, my room currently looks much as it did on move-in day. I've packed as much as I can, spent as many 1p and 2p coins as my conscience will allow at Tesco's self-checkout, and now it's time to play the waiting game until we go out tonight. The Fringe is almost over (some good, some awful, some avant-garde, like last night's Macbeth: Who is That Bloodied Man?), I've done my final tour of the Royal Mile, and I'll head to the park for the last time when I finish writing this. I've managed to go an entire year without eating haggis, though I've had a few wee drams and my share of shortbread.
I'm bringing home two packs of McVittie's Milk Chocolate Digestives, as I have no idea whether World Market sells them. I've closed my bank account, booked my airport shuttle, and said my farewells to my Oxford professor gym buddy. I've probably heard my last renditions of "Scotland the Brave" and "Highland Cathedral", and spent my last quid at TopShop. My mobile won't be topped up again, or at least not for a long time. I've had my last Favorit nachos (perhaps forever, if they don't re-open), my last lunch at the Mosque Kitchen, my one and only deep-fried Mars bar. I've seen my last episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show, though I'll catch Kitchen Criminals tonight at dinner. I've laughed through my last episode of Big Brother on the Couch. I've had my last dinner of instant couscous and Tesco peas, eaten my last Tesco Value Prawn, and drunk my last pint of Strongbow or pear cider. I've received my last student discount (my card expires in September). I'll put away the pans tomorrow morning, but that will be the last time I tidy up the fourth floor's kitchen. I've heard the rumbling of the stupid Lidl produce delivery truck for the last time.

I've already said quite a few goodbyes.

Looking over my blog entries from September, I'm a little amazed by all the things I didn't know and somehow managed to pick up along the way. This gives me hope for this September, but the situation I'm heading into is, if possible, even more nebulously defined than was grad school. I griped that Edinburgh Uni wasn't sending me pertinent information last summer, but at least there was someone in charge, theoretically holding a master plan that would be revealed to us in good time. For the first time in 19 years, I won't be going back-to-school shopping. I will need to purchase a work wardrobe, but it's not the same. The lack of a timetable, of firm deadlines, is what unnerves me, I suppose. This is it, gap year's over, and now it's time to learn to be a Real Adult.

Whatever the heck that entails.

Am I ready to leave? No. I wasn't ready to leave Yale, either (though I was infinitely more attached to that university). I don't just leave things well. I'm settled, I have some idea of what's around me, and I know some great people in this city. Of course, most of them are leaving, too, but I'm going to miss this place. Maybe not the sketchier bits of the south side, but I'll miss Holyrood Park, I'll miss the tartan-swathed expanse of the Royal Mile, and I'll miss streets with names the average American can't pronounce on the first try. For its lousy weather, Edinburgh's a great city, and I'm grateful for this year.

I'm returning to a city I know fairly intimately but have assuredly forgotten, this time as an adult. People move on, places change, friends marry off and scatter. It's a bit jarring to me now every time I hear a random American accent on the street, so how much stranger will it be to be immersed in the land of the drawl once again, never hearing anyone talk about his mates, giving an 'Aye' for the affirmative, or thanking me with 'Cheers'? Football will once again be a game played with an oblong ball and shoulder pads, college will be that place you go after high school, and color will not be spelled with a u. People will pronounce this city's name with a '-burg' and not a '-burra' (or a '-bra', as the Londoners do). It will no longer be posh to be from down south. I'm going to have a heck of a time finding decent scones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing my family again and to embarking upon this next phase in my life. I just realize that I'm about to enter another period of testing the waters, trying to remember how the rhythms go and how I fit in, but this time carrying all the baggage of a fifth year away with me, including an unexplainable affinity for bagpipes and the idea that a 10 PM summer sunset is early. I'm excited, and I'm ready for the waiting to be over.

I just hate goodbyes.