In the August of 2015 I moved to Charleston to go to college. I didn’t stay for very long but that 17 month period had a bigger impact on me than I ever would’ve imagined. It transitioned me out of childhood and molded me into the person I am today.
Ever since then I’ve returned to Charleston at least once a year to experience the city again. I took my yearly pilgrimage earlier this week and was faced with not what I was hoping for, but what I needed.
As soon as I unpacked my stuff at the Notso Hostel, I set off on foot to see all my favorite sights and get lost down memory lane. I took in King Street in all its glory. Some guy drove by blaring a song I used to listen to when I lived there. I caught up to him after he rear-ended another car. So it goes. I heard bits and pieces of conversations from the gorgeous people obsessed with spending money. All the usual stuff.
But by the time I circled back to walk through campus, I was overcome with a deep sadness. I wanted to call it loneliness and keep it moving but it was something much more than that. It was the reluctant realization that the version of Charleston I hold so dear isn’t real anymore.
For several years I’d come back to the city and hear someone yell my name or I’d run into old friends somewhere. It made me feel like things hadn’t changed. But as I walked through campus at 27 years old, it became glaringly obvious that the Charleston I remember only exists in my mind. The high of nostalgia wore off and I was forced to reckon with the present moment.
It was an unexpected lesson in impermanence (one of my least favorite things). Sure everything about the city is roughly the same. The bridge is still gorgeous, the sunsets are still the best at the battery, Gilroy’s still stays open til 3 AM. But the year is 2024 and nothing’s the same. All the people I loved have come and gone and I’m now a stranger in one of the most familiar places to me. And that’s okay; that’s actually how it’s supposed to go.
Realizing this sparked an immense sense of freedom that allowed me to be 27 year old Hunter in 2024, not 19 year old Hunter in 2016. It made it glaringly obvious that clinging to the past, even through fond memories, was robbing me of all the joy the present moment has to offer. Just like it says over the door of Bert’s Market in Folly (pictured above), what I almost wrote off as just feeling lonely was a potent reminder to be here now.