So today's the Fourth of July when we celebrate our freedom from the British. A week from today is the day Jeni and I get on a plane to head back to the UK. Now seems as good a time as any to reflect on life as an American overseas. One question that's come up a few times is if we'd consider staying over there after Jeni's done with school. If you'd have asked me that a month after moving there, I'd have answered with a resounding, "Heck no." After a year however, the idea isn't as repulsive as it once was. In our first month we were struggling to find a way we could survive. At that point the culture was completely foreign and each and every small task seemed impossible. We had to change our lifestyle drastically in order to get along.

As an aside, I'd say that moving to Edinburgh was the first time I ever had to make real lifestyle choices. Up until then living in the States I just did whatever I was used to doing to the best of my current financial ability. Suddenly in Edinburgh, I just wasn't able to do what I'd grown used to doing in the States. Compound that with tighter finances than Jeni or I had ever really experienced since living together, and it became clear we had to redefine our lifestyle, almost from the ground up. The part of life this shows most clearly in is our food buying habits. We now shop with a strict food budget. We buy what we need to make what we've planned to make, along with a few staples to make simple breakfasts and lunches. We used to go out to eat at least once or twice a week. Now once a month is unusual.

Hmm, I guess that last paragraph wasn't completely tangental, because it goes a long way towards describing our current situation. We've learned how to survive, but we don't really feel at home yet. We do have a few really good friends over there who mean a lot to us and do make the place feel more like home, but so far they are exclusively, like ourselves, temporary expatriates. If you ask me now whether we'd consider staying in Scotland or not after Jeni's schooling is done I'd say it's an option that's open depending on how the next few years play out. We would have to learn to do more than survive there, we'd have to feel like it was really our home.

Now, Jeni and I aren't the most patriotic people in the world, and with the current goings on in the world it seems to me like it's getting harder and harder to get really set on fire about being an American. But when it comes down to it, we are Americans. I've realized this past year how much a part of our personal identity our national identity makes up. Now, I don't want to come back to America and slip back into the American lifestyle unquestioningly. We've had to reinvent our lifestyle in Edinburgh and, you know what, there are a lot of things I like about the new way of living we've come up with. The limitations of our situation have forced us into a kind of simplicity which I think has merits beyond saving a buck. Hopefully we can bring at least some of that change into the next stage of our life together, whether it's over here or across the pond.