• Listening to: Music with memories. 311, 1979, Silversun, Band of Horses.

• Eating: Thai leftovers. This makes me exceedingly happy.

• Wearing: High-waist black jeans & a floral top, thrifted, with shoulder pads. I am a grandma.

When you first leave something you love, the pain is deep. Then, after a while, it begins to dull. Little by little, the crisp memories you once had of what you’ve been missing grow dim. The hole that is left – it doesn’t go away & it doesn’t fill up – somehow it’s just a little less there.

For me it’s home. I think Charleston is the most beautiful place in the world. I love the 300-year-old oaks on the dry land & the salty breeze of the wet, drifting up from lake, river, & sea. The aged cobblestone streets are my favorite, especially when they lead down paths to super mod fusion cuisine & dining rooms filled end-to-end with the best dressed hipsters around. As the weather begins to grow warm, I’m missing magnolias & the cool drapery of wisteria.

Confined within the four walls of my West Tennessean home, the second year running, thoughts of home still commandeer the majority of my voyages to La La Land. But the absolute feeling of need, need to leave this town & drive the hour upon hour trip home, need to forfeit trips to other exciting or opportune locations in order to spend as much time as possible back where I come from, that’s all starting to fade, if only a bit.

And as it all begins to go grey, I wonder, am I actually starting to move on?  Is it possible that I could live my life in a place foreign to my ways of being, & still be okay?

Or, does the fading away of feeling signify something more: that I’m just dying without you.

(and of course, all of this not to say I don’t still quite keenly and with great frequency feel the need to indulge in a red velvet from Cupcake, or to visit the lovely little shops at King Street, to sit down on my Grandmother’s sofa, go to an oyster roast, or immerse myself in some form of natural water until I can’t see my toes. These things, I think, will be missed as long as I am away.)