11:46 pm, there's a saxophone playing somewhere, outside

It gets dark so rarely here, but tonight the sky is clear, completely clear, and it is dark. And there is one star outside. I'm looking at it right now, AS I TYPE BECAUSE I AM AMAZING. And I am smelling the air of Glasgow's West End, and I am thinking:

What would I give to smell that for more than two more weeks?

What would I give, wishing star, to see you outside of my window for more than two more weeks?

Two weeks in, today. Two weeks to go.

I can already feel my heart swelling up.

Ok, this is what I am writing a paper about right now, and what I wasn't going to blog about tonight (because I was going to keep it short and plain and dry), but heck to that:

I feel so, so, unreally proud when I hear Scottish people say: "Mackey... Now that's a Scottish name." I've heard that twice, now! And maybe I am just proud because I love this place and now they associate me with this place that I love. But it's more. It's in my heart. It's like discovering a new patch of roots that I had wished to have, but didn't ever see (until now). I didn't know that my Mackey family was not originally from Ireland until I asked my dad two weeks ago (after the first person told me I had a Scottish name) and his exact text was: "Yes the mackey's in Ireland originally came from Scotland."

I read that text, and it was like, I was an orphan that just found out my family was alive and would own me. I am Scottish! I am Scottish! I am Scottish!

I mean, partially. I am lots of things. English. Irish. Danish. Even a pinch of Canadian. But Scottish, Scottish, always Scottish, too. And my name is Scottish. According to my birth certificate, and my passport, and everything in between: I am first and foremostly American. There are lots of people out there that wish they could be American. And I got that without trying. I am fine with being American.

But, sometimes, you just long for something. And your heart leads you to it. And when it claims you the way you have dreamt of being claimed... It's magical. And you become a new person.

And then I tie that idea (this is not a scholarly paper) into a theme of national identity in Sunset Song, by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. And I slightly try to make it look like that book is what inspired me to recognize my Scottish side and become a new version of Madi.

But that new version of me was someone that I dreamed about a long time before I applied to this program, and before I saw the syllabus, and before I knew that Lewis Grassic Gibbon wrote Sunset Song. This has been coming for a while. And it fills my heart to bursting. And I look out of my window, past the tree and the other side of the dorms into the navy night that is glowing orange at the edges, and I look at my star, and I rejoice.

I am here and this is me. And I will never be the same.