Madeline Davis

Courage

Friday July 28, 2006

       Today is my last day here in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews.  After a month of studying, attending classes, staying up till two in the morning, eating terrible food, being enthralled by the Scots accents, spending way too much money, learning the ways of other seventeen year olds from all around the country, becoming like a sister to two amazing girls, and having my eyes opened to sex and drugs, I am finally going home.  There is something magical about this place.  Maybe the air is a little cleaner here or maybe my soul has finally found the peace that it has been searching for over the past nine months.  I arrived in Scotland carrying the baggage of a relationship gone bad, and I leave knowing that my baggage is in the arms of another.  I know when I get home I will see him.  Our paths will cross, and I will talk to him.  I want to talk to him; I need to be able to talk to him.  A large part of me died when he left, and it's taken almost a year to feel alive again.  I want to forgive him and I want to forgive myself, but it's so hard.  Deep down, I'm scared, that I won't ever love again.  I want to love, but I'm afraid I've already given all my love away, and no one will ever want to love me.  He is one of the main reasons that I'm here in Scotland.  I so desperately need to get away from him.
       I tried Haggis today for breakfast.  It is the traditional Scottish food, and today being my last day here, Rachel and I decided that if we didn't try it at least once, we wouldn't experience the full Scottish adventure.  It was disgusting.  Honestly, I could have gone without the steaming ball of sheep leaving it's lingering taste in my mouth.

       I hung out with Mark a lot today.  We walked around the town just talking out the last month, and wondering whether or not things will be different for us when we get home.  That's another thing I'm nervous about.  I feel like I've changed so much this summer, and I just hope that my friends back home can still relate to me and I to them.
       Mark told me that right before he left for Scotland, his mother told him, "Mark, when you come back from Scotland, all of your relationships will change.  You will be different than your friends, not better, not worse, just different."  Laughing, I asked him if he thought his mother was right.  He replied, "You know it's something I've thought about all month, and even though I don't act very differently, I feel different. I feel calmer, and more open to whatever life throws my way,” he replied.  There is simply something magical about this place.  Mark and I have gotten to be very close.  He's from the south like I am, so we automatically bonded around the fact that we both say, "Ya’ll,” instead of "You guys," like everyone else does.  To describe him would be to read out of the dictionary what a guy from the south is like.  He's racist, religious, republican, quite a gentleman, good looking, and funny.  At times he can be brilliant, but another times he's pretty dense.   I definitely wasn’t planning on having a summer fling when I came to Scotland.  Naturally, the possibility it was in the back of my mind, but things like that just don’t happen to me.  I don't know why, but it's always been harder for me, than most of my girl friends, to just have a fling with someone.
       Even though I didn't want a summer fling, I still found myself very attracted to Mark.  If I had had a love interest this summer, it definitely would have been him.  On one of the first nights here, a bunch of us were huddled around this tiny ass TV watching that movie, Donnie Darko, and there is this scene in the movie where the guy is randomly kissed by this girl that he's friends with.  I happened to be sitting next to Mark during this scene, and I heard him whisper under his breath, "Damn, that fool is so lucky to have a girl kiss him like that, no strings attached."  Of course, being the analytical person that I am, I processed that information and concluded with the thought that if I wanted, I could kiss Mark and he would like it.  Heck, he would probably love it.  So, over the next three weeks we went to the beach during the day, hung out late into the night, and I even crashed in his room a couple of times.  We quickly became really good friends.  "I've never had a guy friend like Mark before," I told Rachel and Madison a couple of weeks ago.  "He's comfortable with the fact that even though we hang out a lot, we aren't together, and that just because I enjoy spending time with him doesn't mean that I want to be with him."

 

Part 2