Edinburgh Mentally Revisited

Frequently throughout the day and particularly when I first wake up, little vignettes of my 2006/2007 pre-stroke life in Edinburgh run like movies through my broken brain and I enjoy the experience so much, I've begun to conjure them up consciously. It's like a mini vacation inside my head. Spring mornings crossing the foot of Lothian Road and rushing, late for work, through Rutland Square when the trees were all bursting into leaf above the masses of daffodils planted beneath them and, later on, pink with spring blossoms drifting like snow onto the still-blooming daffodils and startlingly emerald grass. Escaping thankfully from the law office in Atholl Crescent, up along Shandwick Place and across to Queensferry Road to Greggs the bakers for a Cornish pasty to take through the graveyard of St. John's church to the west end of Princes Street Gardens, where I could sit on a bench enjoying my lunch while gazing up at the castle, then walking the length of the Gardens (about a mile altogether) to atone for the small sin of the pasty - not at all a penance, but a delight regardless of the weather. I thought then that I would have been happier with a different job but now I realize it was a blissful life and I'd gladly go back to the drudgery of the secretarial job to have the same life now. Memories are pleasant but I think they can sometimes be dangerous too. If Evan decides to remain in Edinburgh rather than return to Canada, I may try living there again - maybe in about 10 years or so, now that I have a disability pension to ensure I won't have to worry about finding work that can accommodate my physical deficits so I can pay the rent and not have to eat cat food. I miss the friends I made there and can think of lots of volunteer work I could do and be good at. Going for a visit just won't be enough. It's the day-to-day living there that I miss. Being able to see the castle every day on the way into the city centre is something I consciously enjoyed every day and which I miss so much, it's like chronic pain and a visit just doesn't alleviate that pain. Since returning to Canada, I've been haunted by a sense of unfinished business because I didn't get to complete my plan of living there for the foreseeable future but that door hasn't completely closed as I'd thought it had. 10 years gives me plenty of time to work on my rehabilitation and recovery to get to the point where I'm reasonably satisfied with my physical condition and to get some money saved to pay for little luxuries now and then. Gourmet cat food perhaps?