Key West dreaming...

"Reading departure signs in some big airport

Reminds me of the places I've been.

Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure

makes me want to go back again."

"Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes"

Jimmy Buffett

Somewhere deep in my DNA I was born with a travelling bone. I blame my father for this, he never could sit still. by the time I was 11 and he deserted us in Kentucky, I think I had lived in 6 states and travelled cross country 4 times. It wasn't until I was 25, and met a man with a wandering streak himself, that I realized i could let that gypsy run free..and I did. During my first marriage, I travelled cross country twice and lived in 5 states. I have seen 38 states in my life. I miss Key West the most.

The funny thing is probably some of the hardest parts of my adult life was in Key West. My husband was diagnosed with leukemia after living there 3 weeks, so no insurance. I worked nights sometimes 60 hours a week, then never slept during the days to take care of him. On advice of my therapist (Goddess only knows how I survived without her) I walked, then ran everyday after work. I got to know every nook and cranny of old town Key West that way. There's a hidden park in the middle of Solares Hill that I would stop by and cry during my walk/runs. I would go from the Casa Marina on the Atlantic to the shrimp docks on the Gulf of Mexico. I was so stressed out, but funny enough, I don't ever think I felt so alive and so dead at the same time. I had enough intuition to know when to leave it, because I knew I had to take John home to die, deep inside me. It was still one of the hardest things Ive ever done.

It has been 5 years since I left Key West. I know probably no one remembers me there anymore. I have heard amputees talking about feeling their missing limb even after it's gone (including my mother), and I feel that way about KW sometimes. Like that little island was a part of me that was violently taken away, and the missing of it still aches unbearably sometimes. It was the only place that felt like home for me for a long time. Maybe I will talk Daniel into taking a trip there one day. I just fear, like some memories tend to do, that my memories of Key West will be destroyed if I ever go back, that the rose colored glasses will be removed. Alas, I still want to go.