Why We Are Moving to Scotland
Before Blake and I made our announcement about moving to Scotland, I went through every possible question I thought we might get in my head. Wildly, I never thought through the one I’ve gotten the most often, “Why Scotland?” The why behind Scotland has been so simple to us that I never even considered it might be an unusual choice. “Why not?”
But I’ll back up. We first visited Scotland in 2017. We caught the train up from London and spent a few nights at a dreamy Airbnb close to the University of Edinburgh in Old Town. Immediately, the poet in my heart was smitten. Gritty streets, grey skies, and a certain moodiness I’ve never felt in another city. At this point, I’ve traveled enough to know that while most places are special in their own way, it’s magic when you visit somewhere new and it feels like an old friend. Edinburgh is that city for me.
For Blake, well, the answer is obvious to those who know him and know that his first love in life is golf. Where better to spend time than the home of golf?
One of my favorite pictures of Blake sitting at a cafe overlooking the Old Course in St Andrews.
We didn’t make our way back to Scotland until July 2022. Blake had entered the lottery system to win tickets to the British Open and managed to snag a few. We were able to make that trip happen and packed our bags for another jaunt across the pond.
It was the most magical trip with a few friends. Late nights in Edinburgh, watching the long summer sunsets in the highlands, and playing card games in pubs. I’ll never forget driving through the countryside at one point and Blake and I ran through what it would take to move to Scotland. Ironically (or not), we’ve now done almost everything we talked through that day. With our friends as a witness, Blake shook my hand and said, “Someday we’ll live here.”
What’s Our Why
It’s obvious we fell in love with the country, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that I think having a why is really important before you make a big decision. As we deliberated and debated the craziness that is flipping your life upside down, we’ve had to really define why we’re doing this. There are a lot of beautiful countries and places to visit in this world, but packing up to move to them for a short period of time definitely isn’t the norm. For us, it came down to these few things:
Life is wildly short and our days aren’t promised. If we have a chance and don’t take it, will we regret it? (Yes.)
In October 2019, my dad was diagnosed with ALS, five months later he died. He had just turned 57.
Those two sentences hold more weight in the choices I now make in life than I can ever properly convey. Loss has changed the way I view the world, and while I wish with all my wishes the story had been different, I can’t imagine viewing this world the same way I used to. I know now in such a tangible way that we only get today.
Will we let fear and scarcity guide our choices? (No.)
One of our core values as a couple has been to view the world with abundance and not with scarcity. This has guided our choices with money, generosity, and risks. It’s an active decision because there are so many messages in this world that tell you to pull in, withdraw, to hide your hand. For us, we view it as a rebellion to say, “No. We’ll hold our hands open to the world and come what may.”
Is a nice house and a good job enough to keep us somewhere we no longer want to live? (No.)
Ah the trickiest question for us over the past few months. We had a comfortable life in Oklahoma. I loved my job, we had a lovely home and good friends. We’ve always said we wanted to leave Oklahoma but the time never felt right, and in the past few years, we’ve been more comfortable than we ever have been before.
So as our hearts started to lean towards something new, as it finally began to feel like it was “the right time” to leave, we battled with how comfortable we were. It came back to realizing that comfort is not one of our core values. For us, choosing to stay began to feel like a safe option we would choose because we were afraid and we don’t want to make decisions rooted in fear. So no, being comfortable wasn’t a good enough reason to avoid change.
And so, we set off for something new. We’re going to explore a beautiful corner of the world for a few short months as we figure out what comes after that. There is fear, there is risk, there is discomfort, but there is also contentment, freedom, and joy that we’ve found in this choice.
Why Scotland? Because at the very center of it all…why not?
