| Peterculter, Scotland |
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| Memories of Royal Deeside |
| From: sg1 |
I'd had enough. To hell with computers, large corporations and having to go through three layers of bloody annoying management just to get approval for a single vacation day. It was time to go home.
After seven years of bureaucracy at the Dept of Defense in DC, it was time to break free and return to the old country. Whether it was a culmination of events or one single incident that led to this decision I don't know, but one morning in September last year I woke up, handed in my notice and booked a flight to Aberdeen, Scotland via London.
Adios gray building, gray people and gray job, hello ... well, I hadn't a clue!
It had been almost fifteen years to the day that I had left Scotland, my country of birth and childhood, to do what every young Scot did -- move away as soon as possible and become lost in the metropolis of London.
Having escaped the lures of Soho, work took me to Chicago, Cleveland and Washington DC. Exciting times for several years -- except Cleveland of course. Now, here I was, standing on platform 3 with my suitcase at Aberdeen train station after having traveled by car, rental coach, two planes, train and now waiting patiently for my parents to pick their son up.
Thirty minutes later, and almost fifteen years including university time away, I was back in the village of Peterculter (pronounced 'Peter-kooter') where I had spent my childhood. Funny thing was, I was now seeing the place, smelling the smells and hearing the noises of a place I had long forgotten. It all seemed so different after all this time. As a child, the countryside that lay at our doorstep seemed immense and never-ending. Now, it was just a few fields and hills. Our house that had stood rooted in heavy granite that seemed gargantuan as a gangly eight-year-old seemed almost small and claustrophobic. Clearly, I was still seeing my surroundings through the eyes of a child and not the thirty-three year-old I am now.
I wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or elated. It did initially seem like an anti-climax having returned but that was just my 'glass half-empty' personality talking.
I stayed at home for two months. The first time I had slept in my own bed for over a decade. I walked the old railway line below the house that I used to take my childhood dog endless walks on, I climbed down the slopes to the River Dee that seemed like traversing mountains as a schoolboy. I went to the village library that I'd spent many an evening in after school reading comics rather that do schoolwork. I saw old ropes hanging from trees I had once swung from. There were so many memories of this place that I had forgotten but had forced themselves to the front of my mind now that I was here. I smiled. Now I was seeing the place as 'half-full'. Why? In my opinion, I suppose it all comes down to your roots. The sense of attachment. I had been city-surfing since I had left school -- after seventeen years growing up in one village, it was as if I couldn't stay in one place for long -- the next sixteen years were spent in nine different cities split between England and America, all of which were spent single. My home of birth represented much more than just where I had created my childhood memories. It represented my only memory of family, of safety, of security and of consistency. The time beyond that had been of the exact opposite.
It was good to be home. I had missed it, more than I had cared to imagine. I had learned my lesson -- never forget your roots.
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