Veterans Day weekend, 2008. A year ago this weekend, I promised to Kristi at Cocoa Beach and she said yes. We stayed overnight at a nice hotel, ate chocolate-covered strawberries and drank champagne, and generally just soaked in the wow-we’re-engaged vibe. It seems a lot longer than just a year ago.

We’re flying into Orlando this weekend to wrap up some old business: mostly, to clean out my storage unit and shut it down. We’ll be shipping some of the stuff back, taking some on the plane with us and disposing the rest of it somehow in Florida. We also plan to get together with friends and family, finally giving Kristi a chance to meet my parents, and then to visit Cocoa Beach on Monday.

I wish I could say that I was giddy-excited-happy about this trip. I’m looking forward to parts of it, like visiting people and fetching my stuff finally and enjoying Florida orange juice. I’m looking forward to walking Cocoa with my wife. Not looking forward to two nine-hour plane rides across the country or traversing the crowded claustrophobia of Orlando for a weekend. I remember last year coming home at OIA after spending my first week here in Modesto, getting hit by that wall of warm humid as I stepped outside, looking around and thinking, why the hell does anyone live here? And that was after only a week. It’s been a year now, so I’m expecting the same effect only greatly amplified.

Maybe it’s just knowing that this will be the last trip to Florida for a long while. Perhaps a very long while. There’s a certain melanchony twang to it. Home’s in California now, among the Sierra Nevadas and the craggy Pacific shores and the broad valley farmlands and the crowded streets of San Francisco. We haven’t even left yet and I’m already feeling homesick to return.

It’s a strange feeling, preparing to visit the foreign land that you lived in for over 30 of your 37 years.