What a journey this has been. I can’t even express the difficulty I encountered in getting myself and the dogs back in the middle of a pandemic. Really, I don’t think I can even begin to scrape the surface. The dogs and I are back in the US now though. They arrived a few days after me. The pet travel company (Pets on the Move in Glasgow) was incredible and wouldn’t stop working until they found a way to get my dogs to Seattle. My dogs ended up being driven to Luxembourg and flown out on a cargo only flight, a cargo company that specializes in shipping animals. Both dogs are very happy and have settled in quickly.

I’m feeling a bit lost. The first couple of days were hard. I felt really disoriented, lost and emotional over what I’d left behind. I have a truly incredible group of friends in Scotland and I’ll miss the hell out of them. I’ve stabilized a bit at this point and am not feeling particularly emotional, just a little lost. I’m at square one now and don’t know where to go. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a good job, so at least I don’t need to worry about finding employment. I just hate not knowing what’s next. I’m not good at staying still. I’m also not entirely sure where I stand with people in this next phase of my life.

One thing I hadn’t anticipated in separating from my husband is how other people would react. For the most part people have been alright but I’ve learned that people who knew us both seem to feel like they’re supposed to choose sides, in one particular case completely shutting me out. One person simply said “I’d like to hang out, I don’t know what the politics of this situation are but I think we can hang out” and I was so grateful for their honesty and that they admitted it was awkward. One person that I genuinely considered to be part of my Scottish family has completely given me the cold shoulder and I still can’t wrap my head around that. When this person essentially wrote me off I suddenly realized that this particular couple were Ryan’s friends all along, never truly my friends, and that would be the beginning of figuring out who my friends were going forward. It didn’t even occur to me that there would be this odd dynamic after our separation, I figured friends were friends regardless of my relationship status. I know Ryan has experienced this as well. Anyways, so part of being a bit lost is not being entirely sure who I can reach out to on this side of the world. Of course, I have friends that I know I can still hang out with here but as far as friends that both Ryan and I had together… as much as I’d like to, I feel odd attempting to reach out since I just don’t know where I stand now that I’ve learned that this has somehow made others feel uncomfortable or maybe even angry towards myself.

Being back in the US has been interesting but so far I don’t mind being back. I’ve come to appreciate some of the quirks of life in the US. Things are bigger here, there are giant flashy billboards for pot shops (this made me laugh), you can buy weapons and pepper spray online, the spelling is different, some words have different meanings here, the date format is different, taxes are added on at the register (I hate this), and on the list goes. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up the 24-hour clock, or change my weather app back to Fahrenheit yet, but that’s ok. I love that it’s different though. I love that I’ve been away long enough that things feel different here and almost new. I drove a car for the first time in 2 ½ years and it felt great. There is so much that I’m looking forward to. There is so much here that people take for granted.

I’m glad to be back but I think this feeling of being lost will probably stick around for a bit. I don’t have the slightest clue as to what comes next. I’ve never been in a situation where I could work from anywhere and essentially do whatever the hell I want. I can be a bit impulsive, so it will be interesting to see what decisions I go with now that it’s just me, where my decisions will only impact me. It’s been donkey’s years since I’ve been single, so I’m not entirely sure how this works. My friends keep me in the loop on their dating lives, which I love but it sounds so complicated, so maybe I’ll just stay single for the rest of my days.