Documenting Florida.

It’s strange moving on from a place. I’ve often wondered if there was a specific reason for me to be here. And, if so, if it was ever fulfilled.

All I have are hypotheticals.
And suppositions.
And sentiments.

Unfortunately I never really documented my time here in Florida.

I never told you about how I tried to read Jane Eyre after I first moved here and how the sad and lonely start was too much a reflection of my sad and lonely state so I ended up crying inconsolably, closing the book at chapter 4, and never going back to it again.

I’d like to see you try reading that book after moving to the far reaches of the country without a shred of confidence in your decision and no friends or family close by.

“The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.“

That was from page 3…

You didn’t get to share in the disappointment of my failed dream to become a surfer girl. I was so determined in the beginning. I have such perfect hair for it. So shortly after I moved to Florida I bought a surfboard and a wetsuit. And made friends with people who surfed. And I went to the beach sometimes. With all of those things. But then I found that once I had worn myself out trying to get past the break, I mostly wanted to just sit and look for dolphins. Also, this happened:

Which was enough to make me wary about surfing but not about getting scuba certified. I never bragged about the day I became an aunt. When my sister had a beautiful, slanty eyed, alien baby boy. All 9 lbs and 22 inches of him. There was one picture of the three of them that I couldn’t stop looking at — that tiny new family. It was the infinite. It was summery sunlight and cloud blankets. It was a beginning and I was in love. Unbreakable unquenchable love. My very own nephew.

The precious

I didn’t tell you about the trip I took to Aruba to celebrate my friend’s fake destination wedding that he won on The Price is Right with a girl he never dated — before or since.
Congratulations you two. I don’t know how your actual weddings won’t be a disappointment after this.

I didn’t tell you I decided I wanted to live in a small town someday so I could take a scooter everywhere I go. I imagine it would be like this all the time:

I never really shared the details of my ACL reconstruction surgery. How I took the whole month of December off work and had to wear a giant leg brace every day every day every minute every hour every day. Unless I was exercising. Which mostly meant trying to lift my leg off the ground or bending my knee past 140 degrees. Impossible things for the first week or so. The first time I got on an exercise bike I whimpered the whole time and was pumping so slowly that the autostart never even autostarted. It took at least 6 months for my leg to fully bear my weight going up or down the stairs and I was benched from sports for a year.

It was a hard year. Mostly for my sanity. But also my waistline.

You never got to hear about ex-Jason who I started dating after a whirlwind weekend in the spring and who broke up with me a couple months later over the phone because he didn’t have the heart to do it after I drove him 2 hours home to Orlando.

J: “How do you think things are going?”
L: “Listen, the last 4 weeks with you have been pretty miserable but I’m willing to give it a shot. Whatever it takes.”
J: “We’re traveling so much over the next 3 months that we’re not going to be able to see each other at all.”
L: “Valid point buuuuut….?”
J: “I think we should break up.”
L: “Ok. Byeeeee.”

Our 10 minute conversation went something like that.

Only half of our relationship went something like this.

I also never told you how anxious it made me feel to stay in town alone during holidays while vacation time went underutilized. Combine that feeling with my rabid taste for exploration and the outcome is about 24 trips in the last 2 years, not counting day trips to Orlando or Cape Canaveral or Okefenokee Swamp or Tampa or Cocoa Beach or any number of springs in the area…

Spaaaaaaaaaace.

Spriiiiiiiiings.

In one such instance I manipulated one of my friends to travel to the Dominican Republic with me over Thanksgiving. It was a magical experience. We got a flat tire, our car almost flooded, it also sometimes wouldn’t start, and we were held up at gun point on the side of the road. Those hoodlums got our phones. I kept my face and the SD card from my camera. Also, the camera. Oh, and we hiked down a cliff face to a waterfall we thought was from Jurassic Park. It wasn’t. At least the island was pretty…?

T-Rex not pictured.

He’s already told me he’ll never travel with me again.

I guess the most important detail from my time here is that I saw alligators. Lots and lots of wild Florida alligators.

Wild Florida Me.