Departure: A Travel Reflection
Booking a flight out of Charleston is simple. Leaving, though—that's something else entirely.
Dan and I wait at Gate B8 in Charleston International Airport for our flight to Rome, and I find myself thinking about what it means to go away: to exchange familiar places, people, and routines for new landscapes, languages, and experiences. To create a chain of first-time moments.
We typically choose destinations rooted in one simple fact: we haven't been there yet. Sometimes weather drives the decision—a craving for somewhere snowy and dreamy rather than another boiling Charleston summer day. That's how we found ourselves in Telluride in February, in Park City in October. Today, we embark on a European trip to commemorate my fiftieth birthday, watching dreams of Italy and the Mediterranean Sea come to life.
The preparation ritual is familiar: shutting down the house, holding mail, halting Amazon orders, locking the cars. We artfully compress edited versions of everything we think we'll need into one carry-on and one backpack. All the while, we wrestle with questions about what life will be like outside our daily habits while embracing curiosity about the days ahead. It's what sober and yoga communities simply call surrender.
We have time to spare. Seated near a large window, we watch planes come and go, perfectly routed and timed. I think about wandering through foreign lands, about how my body will adjust to the disruptions of sleep and food cravings. Most significantly, I think about what travel means to me: courage combined with strategy to step into the unknown; openness to let new experiences dissolve judgment; willingness to move through the world with wide eyes and an open heart; intention to integrate into other cultures without the preconceptions that the internet and your own baggage might impose.
Letting go and unplugging from daily life—stepping out of your comfort zone and time zone—can be disorienting. For those of us who thrive on routine, it can feel like stepping off a cliff. My mornings won't start at my favorite Charleston coffee shop filled with familiar faces and warm hellos. My skincare regimen will be edited or eliminated, everyday products stuffed into a tiny clear zippered bag, often difficult to retrieve. Mostly, I'll miss my dark-thirty yoga classes with friends and favorite instructors, followed by my methodical Vitamix smoothie: greens, protein powder, precision. I'll miss the gift of pause—standing at my bathroom window between pre-dawn yoga and daylight, making a mental gratitude list of all that brings me joy, all that I truly don't deserve.
Then there's the art of curation: fitting fifteen days of European travel into one carry-on and one backpack. Thanks to Vuori and Lululemon's thoughtfully designed athletic wear, I have clean, chic clothes packed tight. I've cut back on skincare, hair products, supplements. If a wrinkle appears or perimenopausal fatigue creeps in, I'll note it and deal with it at home. I have books I'm finally finding time to read, stationery to pen letters to friends I want to reconnect with.
Then there's the art of saying short goodbyes while staying connected to those you love.
I remember my father traveling for business in his early banking years. My mother would dress us in monogrammed dresses and ballerina shoes to take him to the Memphis airport, the nearest hub from our small town. Before security existed as we know it, we'd go with him to his gate and wait while he boarded. He'd be wearing a suit—in summer, a tan one. He always chose a window seat so he could see us through the terminal glass and play games. He'd hold up four fingers. We'd mimic the gesture, holding up four fingers back. As departure neared, he'd wave, and we'd grow sad knowing he'd be away. But we were comforted knowing he would return as promised. He never broke a promise.
As the airline attendant calls for final boarding, travelers make their way to the gate, each carrying their own reasons for leaving, their own dreams of what awaits. I watch them file past—a young couple holding hands, a businesswoman with her laptop bag, a family juggling backpacks and excitement. We all share this threshold moment, suspended between the life we're temporarily leaving and the one we're about to step into.
Through the window, I can see our plane waiting on the tarmac, and beyond it, the Carolina sky that will soon give way to clouds, then ocean, then a different continent entirely. I think of my father's four fingers pressed against the glass, that promise of return. But I also think of how every departure changes us, how we never truly come back as the same person who left. And maybe that's the real gift of leaving—not the destinations we reach, but the person we become in the space between departure and return, in that vulnerable, exhilarating moment when we choose to board the plane anyway.
