Scotland 2007

Scotland was the first place I stopped saying I wanted to visit someday and simply went.

I had wanted to see it for years, long before I ever booked a ticket. Books had been part of that fascination, along with the history, castles, landscapes, and places whose names were already familiar before I ever saw them. When no one was available to go with me, I booked an escorted tour and joined a group of strangers in Edinburgh.

It was September 2007, and it was my first major trip on my own.

The trip came during a difficult year, and some of my memories of those two weeks are clearer than others. But I remember standing in Edinburgh and thinking how strange it was that this place I had imagined for so long was suddenly real.

I came home expecting that I would return someday. I haven't yet. But Scotland was the beginning of something I didn't know would become such a large part of my life: going anyway, seeing the places I wanted to see, and discovering how much of the world was within reach once I stopped waiting for someday.