Don't get me wrong-- as far as my career is concerned, I'm fulfilled, and every day I'm finding that I'm becoming more knowledgable and more creative. Personally, I'm finding myself struggling to find social bonds that I've so easily found in any former place that I've called home.
My Spring vacation came at no better a time...and more perfect-- I found my way back home. That would be the original city of grits, Charleston. For 10 days, I explored my roots with some of my very best friends, and how sweet it was.
I haven't been to Charleston since I left last June, and quite frankly, I was terrified to go back. I was scared to return to NYC and miss it even more. When I got in on Friday night, it almost felt like I was returning home from a long vacation. Everything looked and smelled the same.
My friends all came to greet me at the airport, and it was like nothing changed. We spent the next seven days soaking in as much sun as we could. We parked our beach chairs where I fell in love with the ocean for the first time. My heart still hurts thinking about the year of my life I spent living in a beach house on the water with four of my very best friends.
We dined at all my favorite spots (Mozzo, Taco Boy, Home Team, and most recently, Basil) and shopped at my favorite boutiques on King Street. I visited old colleagues and Graduate school professors, and was amazed by how little I appreciated working on a campus where offices can be found in post-Antebellum houses.
I spent the evenings with old friends, catching up on how life has changed over this past year, and one very special evening with my best friend, 3-year-old Felice and her family. Seeing how much her and her brother, Jax, have grown reminds me so much of all the milestones I'm missing with my own nieces and nephew. They are my "family" in Charleston, but we've remained close since I've moved, and she still remembers me (by first and last name).
Thursday we said goodbye to Charleston and made our way to Hilton Head Island for my first experience at the Heritage Golf Tournament. Golf is one of my favorite sports (to put on television while I'm napping), so you can imagine that I wasn't there to marvel at the "exciting" sport of hitting a golf ball and quietly applauding. Let's get real...it was time to party!
Heritage is interesting in that I'm quite certain no one goes there for the sport. With beer tents scattered between each of the 18 holes, and a slew of bars dotting the marina that the course sits beside, my experience at the tournament was rather blurry. We laughed for hours and teased the old men who thought they were studs chatting it up with 20-somethings (ladies, NEVER let your husbands go to Heritage without you)! In fact, we lost members on our boozing team every night, but we always found them the next day.
Needless to say, I'm just now (a week later) feeling like I'm starting to recover. I may be in my mid-20s, but I'm not cut out for this lifestyle of leisure anymore. I realized when I was home that I love everything about it, and I'm counting the years until I can once again call it home. But it's not Charleston, necessarily, that I really miss, but rather, it's what I had there. It's waking up in a creaking old house on stilts and knowing that my best friends would soon pile in my bed to recap the night. It's knowing that Saturday and Sunday we would cure our hangovers with BLT bagels at Mozzo. It's the fact that when I needed to be near family, it was one Felice-hug away. It's the smell of salt water when you step out the front door, and being able to describe to others that your front yard is the Atlantic Ocean.
My friends and I often say that we didn't realize just how good we had it. I thought I had a good sense, but I really didn't. I didn't realize that I was blessed to feel God's ray of light (meaning the sun) every single day, but that I got to experience that time with some of the most special people I've ever known.
Most of my memories in Charleston are across the country now...DC, Texas and New York. All of us together is what made Charleston special. While this post began on a sad note, the story is really that it ended on a good note. I realized that I am happy where I am in my life. I'm happy that I have had the courage to embark on a journey that forces me to evaluate what I truly want in life and who I truly want to be as a person. I can't find that in Charleston right now. I have to find it on my own.
I'll make it back one day, but not tomorrow. I'll make it back when I have the ability to make Charleston my home on my own.
And then I'll eat some grits.
