My Love Hate Relationship

My love-hate relationship with Florida

Everyone that follows me knows that I am a New Yorker. I love my hometown and the only reason I left was that I hated the cold weather. I couldn't take the snowstorms, the 20 below zero weather, and the ice and sleet. Either you were busting your ass on the ice or you felt like you would die from the cold, add to it the winters lasted like 8 months, yeah I was over that.

So every time I had a chance to get away, I flew down to South Florida where my best friend and a dear friend I knew for 30 plus years lived. It was a perfect getaway, warm, sunny and it had amazing beaches. It was here that I met my ex-husband, he lived here and that was perfect for me. I couldn't wait to move to South Florida and the sunny weather it offered.

But some things are not as it seems, just like I found out about my ex-husband. I found out that living in Florida definitely has its drawbacks and the number one drawback is hurricanes.

Living here for so long, I realized it had other drawbacks as well, like people not being loyal, more flighty people, rude people (and they have the nerve to talk about New Yorkers ha!)

But the hurricanes, yep, those are the worst. Picture this, for those of you who have no idea what it's like to be in the cone of death, picture all of your outdoor furniture during the summer.

All of your decorations on your pretty patios and in your backyards, see how lovely that looks? Yes, now picture all of that shit that now has to come in the house. All your plants, every single one, your table and chairs, your outdoor decorations, and windchimes. Yes, everything that's outside in your yard, you have to fit in your house! Then you must drag out these heavy metal shutters and hope that you don't cut your arm off or your head off in the 60 miles an hour winds while you're trying to put them on every frigging window you have in your house. Most of the time, you are doing this in the pouring rain.

In the middle of all this, you must run to the store, to see if you can find any supplies like water, canned food, batteries, candles, or whatever else you may need to be prepared if the frigging roof blows off your house and there's no power for weeks. You'll need these supplies to keep you alive in case the hurricane hits us and we can't find a store for these things, so you'll have at least something to eat and drink. Another few hours, for driving around looking for a gas station that has gas and then sitting in that line to get your car filled up.

Now comes the fun part, now you sit and wait, glued to your television while the cone of death shifts this way, then way back that way, again this way....wait you're safe, nope sorry. You're now in category four and crap your house is going to blow down. No wait, you're safe again.

Oh, no way, now it's a category 5 and the world is coming to an end. Wait, you realized that you forgot batteries, shit now you got to go back and scour every single store in a 20-mile radius to see if you can scavenge some batteries. You find 1 pack of some old dilapidated batteries but hey something's better than nothing and let me tell you at this point out there, no one's nice. Not that they were so nice before but they are definitely not nice now.

You come home to park yourself in front of the television once again. You're worried about your home, the safety of your family, and for hours you wait, binge eating all your supplies as your nerves are shot. When it finally comes and the winds sound like a freight train, you run to get into your closets, the one you hopefully prepared, in the middle of your house with all of your supplies and your battery-operated radio... thinking you're glad you found that pack of batteries. Then the moment we all been waiting for, how far away is this bitch, who is kind of like a woman that can't make up her mind. Either she could be sweet and just drop a lot of rain on us or she could be a complete bitch and blow our frigging houses away or blow our roofs off but you have no idea until that night comes.

That night when you sit in your closet and listen to the howling winds wondering what it is doing out there and what will be left when it's done. You're scared.

You start praying whether you're religious or not because you are that scared. You sit there in the dark, listening to that radio like a lifeline and praying for the end of this.

Hopefully, afterward, you will be okay or you will still have a home left but you never know until you finally get outside.

Sometimes we are lucky, others we are not, it's a crapshoot.

So today my friends please remember what we go through, reach out, send donations, and volunteer to help those in need as I know what it is like in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane. Trying to get your life back in order sucks and it takes a long time, so reach out and help someone else. Yes, this my friends are the price we pay for living in paradise.

"Be the change you want to see"

 @Treadmilltreats