A return can feel successful without proving that leaving was a mistake.

Coming back is not an admission. People treat a return as evidence that the original departure was wrong, when leaving may have been exactly right for that stretch and then finished being right. Lives have chapters that end without being errors. A story in which every move must be justified backwards puts you in an argument nobody can win.

If you have come home, resist explaining yourself in the language of failure and describe instead what you learned and what you now want. If someone else has returned, welcome them without the knowing look. Ask what they are glad to be near again.