That Thing I Always Talk About But Never Say

I feel like I've been hinting at this on here for a million years, but here's the deal: I'm going to Scotland.  This September, I've heading off to the University of Stirling to complete my MLitt in Creative Writing, the UK equivalent of the MFA.  Up until now I've been tight-lipped about the whole thing because I wasn't sure it was going to work out, financially or otherwise.  I didn't want to tell everyone about it only to tell them later it wouldn't work out.  But it's working out.  I'm shocked.

Of course, I'm still terrified about a bunch of other things.  Maybe I won't find a place to live.  Maybe I won't be able to understand any of the Scottish people's accents and they'll all get mad at me (collectively).  Maybe they won't like my style of poetry.  Maybe some unforeseeable comedic hijinks will ensue at one or multiple airports and I won't even make to Stirling in the first place.  Maybe...

You get the idea.

Still, I want to do this.  As soon as that acceptance e-mail showed up, I knew I wanted to do this.  There have been a lot of people telling me not to do this, mainly because of money, but I just can't justify keeping my money and missing out on this.  I can't.  Years from now I can't imagine I'll be saying to myself, "Oh, if only I stayed at my crappy mall job another year and plodded around Akron looking for better work!  If only I hadn't spent that amazing year in Scotland improving my writing!"  And sure I'll come back with the exact same problem, but I'd have it either way, so why not use my time to do what I love while I can?

But I'm not going to worry about justifying it anymore, because this is what I'm doing.  Scotland.  In less than four months.  So get excited.