Back where it began
It’s funny. In the past year I’ve graduated, spent a couple of months traveling all over Europe, moved to London to work for six months, but now that I’m back in Florida it feels like I’m back to the same place I was before with absolutely nothing to show for it. It feels like it’s all happened in the blink of an eye, but at the same time two days ago seems like a lifetime in the past, and tomorrow feels like it will never come. Life’s about to change again and I wish I could just hit fast forward for a while!
In case there’s any doubt, I did expire. The interview was a bust, which meant I had to come home (but thankfully let me off the hook for the third one). I had six days to get everything in order to leave and say my goodbyes to London. I finally had one of the waffles in Ealing Broadway I’d been salivating over for months…and good thing I did, too! It was one of the best things I’d ever had! The weather was gorgeous the last few days I was there; the sun was out five days’ running and didn’t cloud over until the morning Kevin went with me to the airport. That was a hard day. One of many.
The last few days in London with Kevin were really great…we went roller skating, he took me to a West Ham football game, we played beach tennis in the park, and I planned all the food I would make him try when he came to Florida to visit me three weeks later. The morning I left it was hard to say goodbye, but I knew I’d be seeing him again really soon.
It was a long flight back home with a layover in Toronto. When the plane started to descend into the Orlando airport I smiled for the first time that day. The two old Canadian guys next to me asked if I was happy to be home, and I was. My eyes were still sore from all the crying I’d done, but thinking of my parents waiting somewhere down there for me after all that time made me forget about feeling sorry for myself for a while. Walking off the plane, feeling the humidity in the air and the moisture against my skin was something I’d been dreaming about. I couldn’t walk fast enough through the airport…I had this big stupid grin on my face that lasted me the tram-ride to the main terminal and out through the departures gate. I looked for my parents, and they were nowhere to be found. I walked around, wondering if I’d overlooked them in the sparse crowd, but couldn’t find them. After a few minutes I went back to where I’d first come out and I saw them craning their necks looking towards the departure gate trying to catch a glimpse of me. I came at them from the side and startled Mom, but she recovered and the three of us had a nice little reunion.
Once I was back in Gainesville with my folks the happy feelings of being home began to wear off rather quickly. I’m not talking about my family’s home, but “here” in general. Everything was still the same, apart from a few new restaurants and stores. Same people. Same scenery. Same roads going to the same places. I had nothing to do, which made things worse. I had decided to put my job search on hold until after Kevin came, so I was looking at three weeks of continued idleness, coming off a month of idleness in London. In the end I occupied my time with cleaning out my closet, reformatting my laptop, and volunteering with Meals on Wheels to deliver meals to the elderly. Oh, and I went to the beach…several times (that was one thing I was glad was exactly the same!). I was missing Kevin so bad I didn’t know what to do. I was torn between wanting to sit at my computer all day just in case he signed on and wanting to get out of the house and keep busy so I wouldn’t dwell on things. It was a very loooooong three weeks for me.
On March 29th, at 9:32pm, he arrived at Orlando International. I had spent the afternoon down in Orlando with Kelly, and we’d gone out to dinner with our friend CQ and I couldn’t help but check the time every 5 minutes to make sure I’d have plenty of time to get to the airport and still have that very important half-hour cushion time just in case his flight was early. When I got to the airport I couldn’t keep still. I went to the bathroom to check my makeup. I checked the arrivals board. I sat down. I couldn’t sit still, so I got up and checked the board again. There were two arrivals gates at terminal A, and I had no idea which one he’d come out of. I picked one and kept an eye on the other one as well. People would come out in waves, alternating between the two gates–one group coming from where I was, then the next tram load coming from the other one. But sometimes they’d come out from both sides at once and I would panic at the thought of Kevin walking out and thinking I wasn’t there to meet him. My mouth was so dry, but I didn’t dare give up my post. When the lady next to me who’d been waiting on her family from Kevin’s same flight left with her family in tow, I knew it would be only a few more minutes ’til I’d see him coming down the hall. When I saw his auburn head in a crowd that was walking toward me down the hall, I couldn’t smile any bigger than what I had already been doing for the last fifteen minutes since the arrivals board had announced his flight was at the gate. I couldn’t wait for him to get all the way to me at the end of the hall–I kept my eyes on him and dodged the people coming at me in the crowd. I ignored the “DO NOT ENTER” sign and went straight for Kevin and gave him the hug I’d been waiting for for the last few weeks. He hadn’t seen me coming and I think I scared him a bit! I couldn’t stop looking at him. I didn’t even want to take my eyes off him to watch where I was going. All I wanted to do was hug and kiss him and feel the stubbly hair on his chin and squeeze his hands in mine.
It had been a long flight for him and he was spent. He talked to me while I drove the two hours it took to get to Gainesville, but he fell asleep about half an hour before we made it back. It sounds silly, but I missed him during those 30 minutes when I couldn’t really see him or talk to him. I at least knew he was there with me, which makes all the difference in the world. We made it back to my house and I woke him up when we got in. It was weird having him here in my house. He had always been London to me, and here he was, becoming one of many memories I’ve come to have in this house since we moved in when I was a little girl. It was one of the best feelings ever sharing part of my life with him that he hadn’t known before.
The next day Kevin had to finish up some work that had to be finished by Friday, so we really didn’t get to do that much at all. He stayed on the computer and I sort of hovered around, trying to give him some peace to do his work but absolutely dying to drag him away so I could have him all to myself. Later in the afternoon my mom came home from work and she got to meet him for the first time, which offered me at least a short time of selfish gratification. It went really well, but I already knew it would. My mom loved him, and not just because she said she’d love anyone that I thought was good enough to love. And contrary to her earlier apprehensions, she had no trouble understanding his accent. She’d been practicing listening to the Geico gecko commercials until she had it down pat, and Kevin was given his alter ego in the process. 🙂 My dad came home later that evening (after an earlier near-surprise arrival that had Kevin ducking into the bathroom for a last-minute shave) and got to meet him. I was glad he had the luxury of a graduated family introduction…I know how scary it is to meet the folks!
Kevin finished up his work by Friday afternoon, which meant we had time to see the sights of Gainesville, which meant a trip to Lake Alice to see alligators and turtles. We stuck around ’til dusk to see the bats come out of the bat house–a reported 300,000! We doubted that number at first, but as they continued to flood out of their coop and over our heads–leaving multiple little presents on our heads and arms–I was convinced. Mom cooked a big fried Southern meal that night so he could see just exactly how our nation came to be known for fat Americans.
Saturday my dad took us out fishing in the Gulf off Cedar Key. It was a gorgeous day, and the water was smooth as glass for the most part. We could look down and see all the way to the bottom, which was about 35 feet down. The first second we set our rods out to troll, one of the tips bowed down with the weight of a big fish at the other end of the line. Kevin got on it and started to reel it in slowly. I ran for my camera and got it in time to film him bringing up a good-sized kingfish off the port-side of the boat. As he got it in he was smiling and it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I was so proud! We stayed out all day long and that remained the only fish caught for the rest of the day. We ate Kevin’s fish for dinner that night and boy was it good!
The next morning we tried to get up early to get a good start on driving down to the Keys where we’d booked a campsite for the next three nights. We hadn’t actually packed yet, so it turned out to be a little bit later start than we meant and we didn’t get off until about 11:30. It was fine though, we just took it easy and stopped whenever we felt like it…which was quite often since I was knocking back Diet Cokes like it was my job. Despite several breaks, we made pretty good time and got to Miami by about 5:15 or so. From then on out it was salsa on the radio for us and we kept on driving until we got to Bahia Honda Key at about 8:30. The campsite looked nice in the dark, but we really couldn’t tell much for sure. I’d parked the car facing the site so we could use the headlights to see how to put up the tent. The bugs were ridiculous…there were thousands of them flying around and banging into us. Not little microscopic biting bugs–BIG, flying, horrible, scary bugs. At least they didn’t bite. I did scream a few times. We got the tent up, but we couldn’t manage to get the stove working, which meant no dinner for us. I ate a tangerine and was throwing the peel into a bush when a huge raccoon came out of nowhere and ran off about as soon as he’d come. It startled me and I screamed again. I’m sure our neighbors weren’t impressed with us. To top off the bugs, hunger, and raccoons, the car battery had died from having the lights on so long. Nice.
Waking up to see our view the next morning made everything worth it. Our campsite was only about 30 feet from the water and there was a long, beautiful sandy beach with not a person in sight. It was so beautiful. We got up, got the stove working (hooray!), had breakfast, and headed for the beach. We laid out for a while and got in the water. When we got out again we couldn’t stay that long because the sun was just so hot. We both had sunscreen on, but it was one of those times that you just know that no amount of sunscreen is going to keep you from burning. Even the hour or so we were out was enough to make my shoulders and back go a little pink and to give Kevin a nasty case of heat rash. It was really, really bad and lasted several days. I felt so bad for him…he’d come all the way over to Florida to go to the beach and his neck was so itchy and uncomfortable he couldn’t bear to be in the sun. We sat in the shade of the awning on our tent and shuffled our chairs around every so often as the sun shifted the path of the shade. He used my cans of Diet Coke to cool his neck and let out occasional outbursts of sheer agony and frustration. It was awful because there wasn’t anything we could do about it. We went to a pharmacy and they told him to put some cortisone on it, but that didn’t help. Their only other option was Benadryl, but doping him up wasn’t going to help the problem. He soldiered on, though, and we had a really great time. We swam in the evenings, cooked dinner and fought bugs at night, walked on the beach, and played some more beach tennis.
The second day we camped we signed up to go on a snorkel trip to Looe Key Reef. We got on a boat that took us out to the reef and just before we got in the captain told us what all we might see down there…including some jellyfish. My stomach turned at the thought even though he was quick to explain that the jellyfish were in a phase that meant they didn’t sting. I have a terrible phobia of jellyfish that I’ve had since I was little, and I’ve never been able to shake it. I got close once when I was in the Bahamas and I mustered enough courage to swim through a swarm of them to get to the good snorkeling spots, even though that particular kind did sting a little. But when I got in that water in the Keys, I was in trouble.
Snorkeling was very fun. I’ll start off by saying that. I really did like it and I look back with fond memories. Kevin got in first and I jumped in after, trying not to think about how cold the water would be. There were fish right off the boat and all over the place. They weren’t as bright as the ones I’d seen in the Bahamas, but they were still really cool looking and let us swim right up to them for the most part. Kevin and I stayed together, but at one point we got far apart and it was a miracle we found each other above water with everyone in the water looking exactly the same with their snorkels and masks. I’m funny about the water sometimes, and I didn’t like being out there on my own. We always found each other and I tried to stay closer. That was easier said than done since whenever I ran across a jellyfish I gave it a wide berth and found an alternate route to get to wherever Kevin was.
We’d been out in the water for a while when I was following Kevin and I ran into a wall of jellyfish. When there had been just a few, I’d close my eyes and lift my head above water and just kick as hard as I could until I thought I’d got past them, but in this case there was no way around. I swam one way to see if it was a little cloud of them, but there were more the other way. Kevin was still swimming and I didn’t want to be left alone, so I started to just power through and get past them, but once I’d committed and started into them, I realized they got even thicker further ahead. I turned around and kicked as fast as I could back to where the water was clear. Kevin came back after a minute to see what I was doing and I explained there were lots of jellyfish that way and I couldn’t handle it. He went a different direction and I started following behind. I hadn’t gone far at all before I ran into another huge cloud of jellyfish. I stopped and thought about it for a second and decided to try to go through. I knew I was probably missing all the best stuff because I was hemming myself in because of the stupid jellyfish. I closed my eyes and swam for a bit, but when I opened them there were dozens of clear jellyfish rushing directly towards the glass of my mask and pressing against me from every direction. My chest seized up and the breath caught in my throat. I turned around and kicked until my calves started to cramp up, trying to get to the clear water. But this time I couldn’t find my way back to the clear part and everywhere I turned there were jellyfish touching me. I lifted my head out of the water so I didn’t have to see them and looked for Kevin. He wasn’t too far off yet. I called out to him, but his head was underwater and he didn’t hear me. I called out again louder, but he still didn’t hear me. I could feel the jellyfish hitting my legs every time I kicked and I started to have a panic attack. I’d been close to having one before, once, but I’d never had a full-on one…until then. It was one of the most horrible feelings I’ve ever experienced. I knew at that moment that I was being irrationally afraid, but I absolutely could not help it. I was terrified, felt completely helpless and attacked from every side, and all I wanted was for Kevin to come back and help me…but he couldn’t hear me. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, hyperventilating and crying in the middle of the ocean, but it felt like forever. I tried to wait long enough so that Kevin might realize I wasn’t with him, but I gave up and swam back to the boat as fast as I could. When I got to the boat and climbed out I was breathing in shallow gasps and was still terrified and everyone was staring at me. I was in no state to care, so I went to the back of the boat and tried to calm myself down. I can’t tell you how happy I was when Kevin made it back in to the boat. I felt so stupid for being afraid and felt bad for having to go back to the boat to leave him to snorkel alone. I just knew that he’d drown or get bitten by a shark and I wouldn’t be there to help because of the stupid jellyfish. He held me the whole way back to the island and I started to feel better. How ridiculous is this fear? I’m getting short of breath just typing this.
After our third night we headed for Key West! I had always wanted to go and had talked about going for years but had never made it past Key Largo in all the time I’ve spent in Florida. The island itself was a lot bigger than I’d expected. We spent several hours wandering around, having lunch at a nice little outdoor cafe with an eccentric man playing a trumpet and crowing like a rooster every two seconds, and trying unsuccessfully to avoid the hundreds of tourists who had just stepped off their cruise ship. We saw lots of wild chickens and roosters and little chicks all over the place and we took our picture at the southernmost point in the continental U.S. marker. It was just a little thing, but I’ve always wanted a picture taken there! Before we left we tried a piece of Key Lime pie, which was delicious, and then we hit the road and headed to Miami.
I was very excited about going to Miami. Not just because it was going to be lots of fun and the beaches there are gorgeous, but because we were going to be staying in a very nice hotel. Kevin was able to use his impressive credentials to good effect and managed to swing us the Bentley Beach Hotel, right on Ocean Drive in South Beach. We got up to our room and had a look around and it was very nice! Especially after having lived in our tent for three nights, although I dearly loved camping. What turned out to be so funny about that really nice hotel was that so many things went wrong with it! The shower leaked, the phone didn’t work, the TV was impossible to figure out, and further down the list of complaints, the roof sprung a leak the second day we were there! Luckily we were in the room when we heard water running in the bathroom. We thought the shower had turned itself on or something and didn’t check it right away, but then it got louder. We went in to look and water was pouring in from the light socket and had completely flooded the floor! Kevin’s bag was soaked along with the clothes that were in it, some pillows got soaked, everything was wet. Good thing the whole room was tiled. We thought we might get upgraded to a penthouse for free, but the housekeeper came in and mopped everything up and that was the extent of the cleanup effort.
Miami turned out to be a lot of fun. I’d been before, but only for crew regattas and not on vacation, really. The beach was amazing! It was such a nice turquoise color and the temperature was really great. We swam in the evenings and walked around in the daytime. We ate Cuban food, went to Little Havana, shopped, and generally had a great time. After our second night we even changed hotels to one just across the road that’d also rolled out the red carpet for Kevin and his plus one. I liked that one a lot, but we didn’t spend much time there. We went out to the beach for a swim then got ready to go out to dinner. The place we went was so good! We went to Joe’s Stonecrabs, which was just around the corner from where we were staying. The food was incredible, but the best part about it was that when we sat down the waitress said there were tigers there we could have our picture taken with! Kevin and I are both cat lovers, and the thought of cuddling big, huge, savage cats was just too exciting for us. We got in line and when we got to the front we got to play with a little white tiger cub while the photographer took a short break. Her paws were so enormous and strong! She was so cute, but we both felt bad for her and a little guilty at what we were a part of subjecting her to. But when our turn came, we took the photo. Kevin got to hold her first, and as he was nuzzling her against his neck she turned around and bit him! It happened pretty quickly, but it wasn’t very bad, much to his dismay. It did draw a little blood, but unfortunately for him I don’t think it will scar. It will still be a good story, though…the time he got bitten by a tiger! I can’t wait to see that picture!
We left Miami on Saturday afternoon and drove to Clearwater, which took a veeerrrryyyy long time compared to what it should have. The drive along Alligator Alley was really cool. There were SO many alligators along the side of the road! I had to hold the steering wheel for a little while so Kevin could get a look at them. We made a detour in Bonita Beach to no avail. We wanted to go to a beach for just a little while, but we ended up at some dog beach that was just not what we were looking for to say the least. We stopped off again for dinner in Punta Gorda and narrowly avoided having to eat at a Golden Corral, but found a nice Italian place instead. Finally, around 11:30 that night, we made it to our little Super 8 motel in Clearwater. It was a vast departure to the mini-apartment we’d had in Miami with the huge jacuzzi. But we slept well enough.
Clearwater Beach was actually possibly my favorite beach of the whole trip. The conditions were perfect…the air was hot, the water was the perfect cool temperature, and best of all, we played the best game of beach tennis we’d ever played to date since our first ever game on the beach of Gran Canaria…129 consecutive hits!!! Our best score before that had been 43 I think, and we were hoping to get 50. We were like two little kids on the beach that day, yelling and cheering for ourselves. 129!!! I still can’t believe it! On our last day at the beach…it was a fitting tribute to the trip.
That afternoon we headed back to Gainesville for our last night with my folks. We told them about our trip…the snorkeling, the wild chickens, the tiger bite. When my parents went to bed we watched the West Ham game from earlier in the day they’d recorded for Kevin, but they lost unfortunately. I couldn’t stay awake for all of it, I was exhausted. All that beach tennis had worn me out. The next day we took it easy and hung around my house most of the day. Later in the afternoon we packed our stuff back in the car and headed down to Homosassa Springs where we’d decided to camp another night and swim with the manatees.
We were smart this time and made it to the campsite before dark so we could see what the heck we were doing to put up the tent. It didn’t take as long this time without the bugs swarming all over us. Instead of fooling with the stove we opted this time to eat out at a little place just down the road from where we were staying. This place was pretty nuts. It looked like a really salty dog kind of place from the outside, but there were so many cars outside that we thought we’d give it a try. When we went in I was overwhelmed by all the Americana that was inside. Everything was red white and blue, draped in an American flag, and generally steeped in sentimentality. It was part American seafood diner and part shrine to 9/11. The placemats had the twin towers, an eagle, an American flag, and a quote from George W. Bush on the bottom. I was overwhelmed, there’s no telling what words Kevin would use to describe it. It was pretty funny. He was wearing the fishing hat my dad had given him (lovingly embroidered with my family’s nickname for him…The Gecko), and he looked just like any good ol’ boy in there. I told him that, and he proceeded to order his food in a Southern accent when the waiter came by. It took all I could do not to lose it right then and there. He was SO funny! He’s actually not half bad at it either. Way better than my fake British accent. No matter what you say about that restaurant, the food was actually pretty good. We went back again the next day for lunch. 🙂
The next morning we were up at 6:00 to get to the manatee tour place by 6:30. We had to get there early to get wetsuits and watch an instructional video. We were the only two non-Girl Scouts of the trip. There were about 13 Girl Scouts and their leaders and then us, which sounds like it wouldn’t be much fun, but was pretty nice as it turns out. We got special personal attention as a result! And we got to go off the boat first before they could scare all the manatees away. That morning was the best part of the entire trip. It was absolutely amazing. As soon as we got in the water there was a huge manatee coming up to us and letting us touch it. These things are huge…about 10 feet long, but so incredibly gentle and loving. We swam around looking for them, and we saw up to 5 or 6 at one time, playing with each other and munching on the grassy algae at the bottom of the water. We could hear them making sounds under water–a kind of high-pitched whistling–that let us know when they were nearby. I got a little nervous a few times whenever we got in some murky water…a few times the water was so cloudy with sediment that the manatees had kicked up that I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, and then I’d catch a glimpse of an enormous manatee to my side and it would scare the living daylight out of me! Once I was looking above water for signs of some nearby, and when I stuck my head below water again there were three right there beneath me and I screamed into my snorkel. Kevin and I started laughing so hard we couldn’t take a picture or even really watch them that much. We both just got tickled at how unbelievable it was to see these odd animals in the wild. It was such a joy…I definitely want to do it again someday. One little manatee played with us for a good few minutes. He stayed right with us, going around us and letting us stroke him. He even went up to Kevin and patted his arm between his two flippers. It was amazing…I can’t think of another word to describe it. Sharing that with Kevin was really special. Experiencing it with him was one of the greatest moments I’d had, and was the best way I could have planned to spend our last full day together.
We packed up the tent and drove to Orlando after we got back from the swim. We checked into our last hotel, for the last night before Kevin was to fly back to London. It was really awful. It felt like we’d arrived at our final destination…which we had. We’d talked earlier about what we would do when he had to go home and I had to stay here and it hadn’t exactly gone how I’d hoped. He didn’t see how it could work with us not seeing each other regularly, and I had to agree that it would have been difficult to maintain a relationship long-distance without seeing some end in sight to the separation. When he left, that would be it. The end of us. When we walked into that hotel room in Orlando it settled on me like a heavy fog.
That was another particularly hard time. I knew that time was slipping by and nothing I could do would stop it or change our situation. I’d said everything I had to say, he’d said everything he had to say. All the words had been spoken. We knew exactly what was going to happen. That afternoon I cried for a long while and we sat in the room feeling sad. It was a lethargy I didn’t want to shake at first, because I was afraid to feel too happy because I knew it would only be short-lived. After a while we made ourselves get up, cheer up, and go out and do something fun to get our minds off everything else.
I took Kevin to the Pirates Cove adventure golf on International Drive. I told him that he might be the only British person who came to Orlando without going to any of the theme parks, but I wouldn’t let him come without doing something touristy and tacky. We had so much fun! It was a close game, and I narrowly beat him by two shots. After that we went to do go-carts at an amusement center further down the strip. That was even more fun! Kevin had so much fun the first time that we paid to do it again. I laughed so hard while we were doing that, and seeing how excited he was at passing everyone and coming in first was one of the best parts of the night. I’d found some tokens in my car that we used to play some skee ball and some air hockey, and we used the tickets we won to buy a pair of neon pink vampire fangs. It was a totally tacky, completely fun evening, and I don’t think it could have gone any better than it did. We were both happy and laughing and together.
Instead of going out to eat at a restaurant that night, Kevin had the idea of ordering a pizza and taking it back to our hotel. I thought that was a perfect idea, so that’s what we did. We got back to our room and spent the next part of the night eating barbecue chicken and veggie pizza with pink vampire fangs and talking until we fell asleep with the lights on.
I set the alarm that morning early so we wouldn’t have to get up and rush to the airport straight away. We’d at least get to spend the morning together. That was another hard time. I’d actually never been in a situation where my heart had been broken, so I had no idea it would be as hard as it was. It just didn’t make sense to me how two people who loved each other could walk away and call it quits without ever seeing it through to the end…whatever or whenever that might be. This relationship that meant everything to me was about to be over in the time it would take me to drive him to the airport. Another countdown to expiration. I couldn’t take it anymore.
We looked at the clock at one point and realized we had to run out the door right then if Kevin was going to make his flight. I flung stuff in my bag and we both rushed out and I sped to the airport. We made it there about half an hour prior to his boarding time. I didn’t know what to do at that point, so we found a bench where we could sit together and wait ’til the time came when he had to go. We didn’t really say much; he put his arm around me and I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. If I didn’t look at him I could keep from crying. I was already a mess. But after a while, he had to go. I walked with him over to the security line. He had stayed with me until it was his boarding time and he didn’t have time to wait in the line, so he asked the guard if he could go through. The guard looked at his pass and let him through the barricade. Kevin asked if he could have a second to say goodbye but the guard said no. I stepped forward and we kissed twice, and then I started to walk away. I didn’t think I could handle seeing his back as he walked away, so I just kept walking, but after a second I turned around to see if I could see him before he passed into the security area. When I looked back he was still standing behind the rope with his hand to his mouth, watching me walk away. I thought before that I couldn’t hurt any more than I already was, but at that moment I felt a whole new level of pain I had never felt before. I signaled for him to go on, because he really was close to missing his flight, but he just stood there motionless. I turned around and walked some more, not really knowing where I was going, but just going somewhere. I turned around again and he was still there watching me. I kept walking, not noticing if people were wondering what was wrong with me until I got to the escalators. I stepped on and watched him, still standing where he had been. I started going down, and I waved goodbye. He waved back. Then he was out of sight. That was the last time I saw him.
As soon as I’d lost sight of him I ran down the escalator steps. Down to the tunnel, through the parking lot, and to the car. Once I’d got inside I lost it. There were pillows in the backseat that we’d used when we’d camped and I grabbed one and started crying into it. I sat there for half an hour, feeling worse than I can ever remember feeling in my life. Way worse than the jellyfish, but sort of the same. I felt like I did that day in the water when I was so afraid and wanted nothing more in the world than to have Kevin there with me, but he was gone. That was the hardest part of all.
I made it home that day from Orlando. That was a hard day. They’ve all been hard days, and it hasn’t been that long yet at all. So far I’ve just been staying busy and trying not to think about it. I try not to be alone that much and that helps. Mom says each day will get a little easier and so far she’s been right. Kevin and I have talked online, which helps a lot. I have no idea where we go from here.
So things are changing. I’m back here where it all started, like nothing ever happened. Now I’m looking for jobs and hopefully will have something within the next few weeks or so. If I don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying. Sending out applications is a good way to keep myself occupied, so I’ll have no trouble keeping my head down and getting to work! I don’t know where I’ll end up, but in a way that’s kind of exciting. I feel like I’ve been starting my life over every few years or so, going somewhere new and starting from zero, which was appealing to me at first, but I’m getting tired of it by now. I want to find a life that isn’t subject to an expiration date.
Tags: Florida, Gainesville, London, Miami, Orlando, Travel
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