When I left Charleston to travel around Asia for six months and then move to San Francisco, I didn't think I'd be away long. I figured I'd hop a cheap flight back sometime soonish, see all my friends, hit up my old haunts. But now here we are just shy of two years later, and I haven't been back since Sean and I drove that big old U-Haul down our street on a blistering June morning, waved, wept, and were gone. 

I have to be in Orlando for work next week, and when I first heard about this particular business trip, my immediate thought was that I'd finally be in the Southeast corner of the United States again, and hey, if I was going to be in the South anyway, why not take a little side trip to Charleston as well?

It was a rather rash decision, and it suffers from several downsides, including an inordinate number of flight connections---I will be taking six planes in five days, please accept my apologies for ruining the planet---but I'm leaving on a red-eye tomorrow night and spending the weekend in Charleston before hoofing it down to Orlando on Monday morning. My flight from Charleston to Orlando leaves at 5:30am, and I'd like you to think about that for a second, just think about what time that means I have to get up in order to be at the airport at HALF PAST FOUR IN THE MORNING, a time I haven't seen since college, and that was through beer goggles because I hadn't been to bed yet, so that doesn't count.

I'm going to be honest with you: I'm nervous about going back. I'm so nervous about going back, in fact, that I've done a few ridiculous things, like scheduling not only a pedicure---fine, fair enough, no biggie---but also a SPRAY TAN for Friday after work, and if you don't think me getting a spray tan is the most hilarious thing ever, I'm not sure what to tell you. (A spray tan! Oh my god! I'm going to end up like Ross!) Every time I see "5:30pm---SPRAY TAN" written in my planner, I crack up like a five year old who's just heard someone say boobs, because what? I booked myself a spray tan? Because I'm going to Charleston? What am I thinking?

Well, I'll tell you what I'm thinking: I'm thinking I was a different person when I left. I was a person who went to a lot of fancy parties and wore a lot of nice dresses and got a lot of free beauty products in the mail. I was a person who was put together, well-accessorized, primped and preened. I wore heels to work every day and I knew a lot of people. I was 26 when I left, and I'm 28 now, and while it it might not seem like much of a difference, the gulf between those two ages---those two points in my life, the way I feel about certain things---is like the damn Grand Canyon sometimes. (Also: these days I have wrinkles.)

So when I land in Charleston on Saturday morning---after four hours of bumpy sleep on a plane to D.C., a layover at what will be 3am to 5am for me, and then another flight to Charleston---I'm going to be landing as a person who's grotty and grungy, a person who has a row of fabulous skirts in her closet but doesn't ever wear them anymore, partly because of the San Francisco chill, but mostly because of the fact that a girl can't even wear her Fancy Jeans to dinner out here without rumors starting that she's overdressed for the occasion. It doesn't help my case, either, that my most stylish and glamorous Charleston friend, Pretty Coworker Elle (remember her?) is picking me up at the airport.

And yet, it's not that, though---not really anyway. There's more to these nerves than the fact that my nails might not be properly varnished---or varnished at all, whoops, should have booked a manicure---or that my purse not might match my shoes, or that I might slip up in some other way I'd forgotten was so important in the South. It's something else. It's the feeling that Charleston might not be just as I've left it after all.

I have this rule about restaurants and the rule is this: if I've had a spectacular meal there, I can't go back. Doesn't matter how great it was, doesn't matter what occasion it's for: I've learned, through trial and error, that it's never as good as the first time. Your expectations are raised, your spirits are high, you think "this is going to be just as amazing as it was before." And it never is, of course. Well, of course! It never will be.

And so sometimes I think maybe I just shouldn't go back to the cities and countries I've left either---and I've left a lot of them---because all I'm doing is setting myself up for disappointment. Things change. Buildings crumble. People move. The world keeps going without you whether you're there or not, and in the end, all you can really do is keep going with it, keep moving forward, keep looking ahead. And perhaps turn around once or twice just to wave.