We just arrived home from a trip to FL to see my partner's grandparents (transplants to Florida from the Midwest). They live in Central FL on the Atlantic coast, so in reality we were able to hear many East Coast (i..e. NY, NJ) accents. It was refreshing to think of FL in a different light until we went to breakfast the last morning and saw a couple with matching shirts. The shirts had a gun on them, with words saying we FL style, we don't call 911. The couple was older and the shirts upset me greatly, especially as I had my four year old son with us and we were sitting at the next table. I kept my mouth shut, mainly because we were with my partner's grandparents at a cafe the locals go to. But I really wanted to tell the couple how horrible their shirts were and what a bad example they were setting for children. I know people will not all think like me and I'm not per say against gun ownership, but the shirts were just wrong and within the context of stand your ground laws in FL and all the horrible shootings that have happened there, the message is sickening.
However, there are other things about the Florida trip that were pleasant. Growing up in the Midwest, with a small family and my grandparents who lived in town, we never traveled for the holidays. And with the holidays we had our own rituals. Reminding you I was an only child, the holidays could be lonely. On Thanksgiving, my grandpa made fudge, I ate it while watching the parade on TV. This is one of my beloved memories. While in college, I might have traveled the short drive home for the holidays or the shorter drive to other friend's and boyfriend's houses. But come grad school, we often made the longer trip from MN back to IA and NE. I always worried about the weather as there were years we did have to adjust travel plans due to snow and ice.
So driving to FL from South GA made me think about the term fly-over land. I know the midwest is called this, but since this was my reality and normal of driving, I just thought longer car trips were always a bit boring with the flat scenery (okay the snow could make it look nicer, but drive through farm land in the winter with no snow, and you get my point). Not that all of the drive in FL and GA was scenic, but during our route we crossed many rivers and other bodies of water. There wasn't a lot of farmland. And the rest-stops. We were in tourist country. There was free fresh juice and lots of travel brochures. Maybe IA could have free corn on the cob at their rest stops!
The trip was a nice get away from the "boro". From rural southeast GA, where poverty is prevalent, to the coast of FL, where people seem to have money, it was a shock at times. And even though I wanted to come "home", it still was hard to come back to our rental home here. I'm struggling yet with many mixed emotions of our current home.
I still feel raw about our neighbor situation. I don't like to not like people. I wish he would say he was sorry to us for his behavior, but that's not going to happen. I don't want to be afraid to let my dogs out at all. I don't want to be afraid if my dog barks, as there are many other dogs around here who bark all the time. And I hate it that he thinks he somehow is a native of here, when he is not. I want to scream to him that we are probably the best neighbors he is going to have and that if he would have asked us nicely (don't they teach this in the church you are a pastor of??), things could have been handled nicely. And by the way, MO is not exactly the South buddy, which is where you a from. And yes, I am angry because someone who proposes to be a preacher is unkind and acts evil to those around him. I wish he could get shamed for his actions, but around here, I've heard the people from this religion get to to dislike us Northerners and people who are not white. And people wonder why folks don't believe in organized religion. I know I need to move on from the situation, but I still get a bit freaked out when I see a man who looks like him and wonder if they are going to yell at me.
And I still fight the feelings of loneliness here. We lived in Minneapolis for 13 years and yes it took time to make our friends there. But I came there to go to grad school, so your cohort is your family. And then you branch out. And we lived in the "Seinfield" apartment building in which we me met one our best friends there. Then we lived in our house, in which we could talk to our neighbors, had block parties, watched each others' pets, helped each other with projects, etc. I had friends I could call on. I had people to talk to.
I know things take time, especially to develop relationships. I know that I have a few good friends here. But still, I feel lonely. I don't want empathy here. I'm using my DBT skills to say this is how I feel. I hope it gets better.
