Since discovering Scotland (through books, movies, and basically every avenue other than actually visiting the country myself) when I was high school, I've had the desire to live there. After visiting and traveling around the country for a couple weeks in 2011, it's developed into a deep and soul-disturbing thing, clawing at me and generally making itself known. It's been stronger at times and I've been more vocal about it, but my little monster has certainly always been there. In recent months, I've noticed myself feeling more and more that I'm not "home" here anymore, but instead a long-term guest of Canadian life. Don't get me wrong, I love being Canadian,  living in Canada, and most everything in/about this dear country (though, through reading travel blogs, my fears of international health care have only deepened)... but my soul is uneasy and my heart hurts a vast majority of the time. I suspect only people who've been bitten by that insatiable wanderlust truly know that feeling.

Now, being an only child of a single mother (and especially after seeing her reaction to a traumatic event in my life in 2009), I've had my reservations about dropping/selling/giving away most of my Canadian life, packing up the remains into a neatly packed 23kg suitcase, and moving clear across my dear patrie and the Atlantic ocean. But, being nothing but honest here, if I could do it tomorrow, I would be on a plane, suitcase or no suitcase. All of my hesitations revolve around my mom/friends, and maybe that just means I care about what others think a little too much but whatever.

I could play the 'What If...' game for months and not move, but it seems the less I think about life-altering decisions, the more I thrive after making them (moving to camp, moving to Leth, enrolling in culinary school, working at CoCo, moving back to camp.... all difficult decisions to make, all made basically on a whim, and all irrefutably changed me ultimately for the better; I regret very few decisions I've made in my adult life).