Beachy Attitude

My first post from the keys, in my new house. It is on the canal and has a pool, could I ask for more? Yes. I did ask for more, and I got it. There have been approximitly 1000 posts rolling in my head since we left Missouri over a week ago. I'm not sure where to begin. The ride down was long and sweaty and tiring and sometimes boring and now a little bit surreal. The landscape didn't change much until we hit Mobile, AL and then it was just more long roads and southern pines. When we hit the keys and smelling the briny water of the mangroves I finally knew we'd made it under the cover of a brief storm. The weather somehow matched my mood, not in that I was depressed with rain but more a tumultous thunder cloud, rolling, confused, going different directions, in circles. Relief washed over me with the the sun breaking through and the humidity lifting just an inch which was ok, for some reason the watery air felt like a security blanket.

We have spent the last week going to the bars, finding our favorites, eating the food, meeting the locals, setting up phone lines, cleaning the house and swimming in the pool while working on our tans. I miss hubby, but in no way do I miss Missouri. I don't miss my store like I thought I would. Maybe because it still feels like a vacation, yet this place has always felt like home. I think that feeling will only increase with time. It is hard to describe how this atmosphere changes me. It has an undercurrent of energy that excites me, taunts me, but at the same time the people are laid back and accepting, understanding. When someone asks us where we are from, which in a tourist town is the most asked question, and we say, we just moved here there are no looks of terror and confusion. Such a contrast to when people back in MO asked where we were going and we said they got this look of complete horror on their faces like we were crazy for ever leaving. I suppose that is it, people who are here moved too, they understand, they relate, it's comforting.

We are working on setting up our lives again, looking for jobs, settling in new routines. I try to erase the old ones from my memory, they were merely the road to get here. Missouri, Wisconsin, it all seems so far away. The really important people in my life, hubby, my sis, they can't wait to be here with me. When I tell them what I've been up to I can hear the excitement in their voices, because they have been here, they know what it is like and can't wait to share it with me again.

Home, sweet home, I will never be able to go back or accept anything less.