On Leaving Glasgow and Having No Definite Plan
September 4, 2014Leaving Glasgow was meant to be easy. I had known the end date from the day I moved there and after 10 months plus I thought I would be itching to leave. I thought I would have university to look forward to and a big travelling trip to be jetting off on but somewhere along the way both of these things got taken off the cards. My work situation left me clawing back money from where it took me a while to find a job and then having over ambitious travel plans for the first half of the year. This left me with no travel fund for after Glasgow but that was okay I had university to look forward to and prepare for. Then I failed that dreaded literacy test not once but twice. Currently all hope of going to university lies on me passing my last chance at the test, on the 5th of September. I left Glasgow feeling rather unsure of the future and feeling a little let down about how my 10 months had worked out. Yet despite the disappointment I was sad to be leaving my job, my home and my life.
Leaving day at work crept up on me much quicker than I realised, mid June I had started a countdown because I was really fed up with working in the restaurant and having no social life. Yet when the day came for my last shift, I genuinely felt sad leaving my work colleagues. The job, like any other had highs and lows but we all went through them together. They were the closest I had gotten to a social life and I didn’t realise how much I had enjoyed their company until it was gone. It wasn’t leaving the restaurant that was hardest though, leaving a nanny job is ten times harder and I had to leave two. I had gone in to work that morning, knowing it was my last day, I was mentally prepared. I handed over to the new family nanny and had some last games with the boys. It was mid afternoon when the parents came home and let me go. I handed my keys back, hugged everyone and promised to keep in touch before getting in my car to drive home. I cried the entire journey home. Leaving my other nanny job was a little less emotional because my last shift was a few weeks before I actually left Glasgow. I went back the day before I did leave to say goodbye but it just didn’t feel as emotional because I had already gone two weeks without looking after them. Needless to say I still felt extremely sad, I just didn’t expect to feel so sad.
Our flat in Glasgow was the nicest place I have lived in since moving out of my parents house back in 2009. It was a lovely two bedroom flat in the Anniesland area of Glasgow. The minute we walked in I knew it suited us perfectly, we were even opposite the gym so signed up for our first ever gym memberships. It was a start to a grown up life, it was a way to cope with coming home after a year abroad. It worked, I instantly felt at home in our flat and over the next ten months I continued to make it feel like home. Packing up was hard, in all senses. I didn’t want to pack up a life I was content with, I didn’t want to leave a country I hadn’t finished exploring yet but most of all packing up our stuff for the confusing time ahead until we find a new flat and know what we are doing was challenging. I scrubbed the flat clean like my life depended on it and spent the final week organising everything, just so we could enjoy four days away. The whole mini Scottish holiday felt like it was just getting in the way of the packing up but in reality I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Like with everything I left seeing some of Glasgow much too late and just stressed about having not explored the city enough. Really I had, after all I had done more than just explore Glasgow, I had lived there for 10 months. Still the best part of living in Glasgow was falling head over heels in love with Scotland. From having Loch Lomond a 40 minute drive from the city to the endless one day road trips this country provides. It is the perfect place for a traveller to live, even on the last day of living there I was desperate to be out exploring Scotland. My list of places to visit is still as long as my arm and leaving without knowing the next time I’ll be back was hard. I never realised I could fall in love with travelling on my own doorstep so much but it just goes to show, it is what you make of your situation.
Life in Glasgow was a roller-coaster of highs and lows. Adjusting to life in one place but not really staying still. Having years full of plans but only 10 months to get through everything. Planning my life at university only to have my place still unconfirmed. Dreaming big with travel plans but falling a little bit short. It was 10 months of lessons, disappointments and adjustment but feeling content, alive and positive at the same time. Glasgow was everything I wanted it to be and not, at the same time.
