thats me with the headband, in the most beautiful place on this earth
I always miss Charleston. Not a day has gone by since I've left where I haven't thought of that city of bridges and tidal marshes, where I haven't convinced myself that I can still smell salty air when it rains, even these hundreds of miles away. I miss Charleston for a million and one reasons. But today I miss it for its ability to comfort me. In college whenever I was feeling lost or confused, whenever I was having an existential crisis or two, I would get in my car, drive to the closest beach and just walk. And always, every single time, I left feeling better. No matter how upset or mixed up I was, these walks just gave me room to breathe. No voices from the heavens spoke to me. Nothing particularly dramatic or exciting happened. I simply started to feel better. I really could use a Charleston beach walk right now. I would give anything to have just one hour at Folly or Sullivan's. It would even be okay if I had to be whisked away at the end of that hour. I could handle that as long as I could get just sixty minutes of sand and sky and peace. I've mentioned in previous posts how hard it has been coming home from Thailand. And well more than two months later, it's still hard. It doesn't help that I don't have a job, that I'm living with my parents at 24, that I'm single while nearly all of my friends are in couples (and my GOD I never realized how true that scene with Bridget Jones is when she goes to the couple dinner party is until now). It's hard to reconcile my life right now with my life of two and a half months ago, when I was on some tropical beach in Thailand feeling like it would be impossible to find a more perfect moment. I couldn't believe how lucky I was, to be in these places, living this kind of existence.
To be fair, my life now, when I'm not feeling sorry for myself, is still pretty great. I'm 24. I know there will be time for jobs and boyfriends and living spaces without my parents, that all of those things are in the future. But right now, tonight, I could really use a Charleston beach walk to clear my head and right myself and remind me that I'm okay and that I will be okay.
And I can't have that. So I guess I'll just have to do the next best thing and listen to this Band of Horses song.
I hear this song and I am right back in Charleston, on that first hot summer day in May when you wake up in the morning and something has simply shifted, the world has become soaked in sun. I'm driving through the city with the windows down, the air not yet humid, just perfectly warm, full of sweet Confederate Jasmine. There is a cooler of beer in the back of the car along with a beach chair, a book, maybe some snacks. My bathing suit is on under my clothes. I drive out of the city, over any of this town's beautiful bridges, blue underneath and above me, and keep on driving toward the shore. The day stretches lazily out in front of me. All is right in the world.
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