Ghost Town

Recently I’ve spent some time back home in Destin…Ft. Walton Beach…Shalimar. It’s all the same but takes too long to explain where it all is. Half my heart will always be home, but I never remember what haunts me there until I spend the time to think and recall the things I once did and with whom I did them.

Even though I was born and raised basically in the same home for my whole life, I now feel like an outsider looking in when I visit. For so long it was all I knew and now I can’t even begin to imagine myself permanently there. I feel like an old lady because I’m constantly saying that’s new…that’s new…look at how much it’s changed. Yet, still I remember a story attached to almost every place.

Monday, I went to meet my Dad and Stepmother for wings and bowling and remembered when I was in high school we would go Buffaloes’ Reef for all you can eat wings. I recall watching Hunter and Seth downing dozens of wings (in one of many eating contests they participated in) and feeling sick to my stomach after eating like 8. Then we went to Whitesands Bowling where I ran into Katelyn, which brings up memories of bowling with friends in the wintertime. Once I was late for curfew (since it was insanely early) so ran out the door only to realize down the road when my foot kept slipping off the pedal (because I had these stupid blue light up petals instead of rubber ones) that I forgot to grab my shoes and were still wearing the rentals. Thank God I wasn’t so ancient that I didn’t have a cell to tell my friends to grab the ones I left. I did end up making those shoes, along with bowling pins, into some kitschy lamps later on in life. Why do I always want to make things into a lamp? Wes says it’s because I want to add a little bit of light to life.

Tuesday, I joined my mom and sister for Run With It’s weekly run club. I got the pleasant reminder not once, but twice of the night I almost died since I ran by the loading dock to get to the island home on the way there and back on the running route. It wasn’t a complete melt down situation or anything; I just try not to think of that instance and then it was right in my face. I did remember good things though too. Like the fact that my mom had such great motherly instincts, she knew to come look for me; or that even though it was freezing in the water, Nick swam across to get the boat to get me out of there. However, I also remember the people who turned on me and said I did it too myself. I may not remember much from that night, but I’ve never been the kind of person who couldn’t admit if I drank too much or experimented a bit so those people still can suck it.

Thursday, we went on the boat over to jetty east to swim in somewhat clean water. (I mean clean in the fact that it wasn't brown from river water washing in with too much rain or had too much seaweed floating about. Not once did I find oil in the water during my visit and I only saw a tar ball in the sand after desperately looking for it.) There I walked about the beach to see the disappearing homes. I remember looking forward to tourist season just to go to jetty east at night with girlfriends. That’s when I discovered that Michigan guys are the hottest; it was also when I first decided it’s always a good idea to lie about my age. Both of these discoveries traveled far with me through college. I was also the one to have to cigarettes (which made me awesome) because I would steal a carton at a time from my Dad without him realizing (come to find out he did notice, he just thought his smoking habit had picked up and thought about slowing it down). Smoking, however, did not follow me throughout college (unless I was hammered of coarse) and without Ken I was too poor to pay for cigarettes to supply to others.

Friday, Wes and I dropped off an old friend on Ferry Rd. We took Yacht Club around which definitely takes me down memory lane. In Middle School and High School, Yacht Club was the place to live…Nikki, Lalainya, Lauren, etc. It was a little strange pulling into 105 Ferry since I spent majority of my adolescents experimenting there. I was surprised that I didn’t remember it better. (We drove past it at first and then had to turn around to go back.) Some promises have no chance of survival but it’s sweet to remember being young and naive. I wonder if there’s still a waterbed in the side room. No one was home so I didn’t speak to anyone, but I did notice the yappy dogs remain.

I drove through the island passing what used to be the batting cages where I’d go for free because Amy worked at the mini golf center and what used to be the water park we would sneak in at night to ride the slides and other things during rainstorms. Behind the old, new Seagull is a pile of dirt where my first serious job used to be located. (I would ride my seadoo to work every sunny day and then get dropped off by mom on dark days.) Flamingo in now Fish Bar, Blue Point in no longer a bar, and just past the Destin Bridge is some awful monstrosity that only Walt Disney could think was a good idea to put in. The place I got married sits vacant and chain bars like Red Door Saloon and Electric Cowboy have settled in. Aj’s seems to be the only place that hasn’t changed much, although I do have a great memory associated with it, which involves me calling the cops on myself when my fake i.d. was rejected four months before my 21^st birthday.

Most of my friends have babies now or I have fallen out of touch with them since I have lost my phone too many times to keep numbers of people I never talk to. On Facebook I may have many “friends” but chances are most of them are as interested in seeing me as they are in going to a high school reunion for a school they didn’t attend. I’ll always have Kinsey at least…well…at least until I finally annoy her enough that she’ll either file a restraining order or move to Nashville like I want. It’s always great to be with her. No matter how long it’s been since we’ve talked we seem to just pick right back up where we left off. She is also key to finding the free drinks, I’ve recently learned. We had a lot of fun Wednesday night for ladies night. It must suck to be a boy in the Fort. Being with her makes me not want to grow up, which could be a problem in many cases.

As I head back to Nashville I realize that I can run as far away from home as possible but the memories associated remain till I come back and I’ll always come back because it is home after all and half of my heart keeps pulling me back. Although now, when I return I get to create new memories with my husband. Memories of seeing the Blue Angels for the first time, of eating pizza and drinking beer at the Picture Show, of breaking his back tubing, of laughing at the wannabe Lynard Skynard band at the bowling alley (now SwampDaWamp is his go to phrase for everything), of taking our dogs on a Yolo board ride, of fighting with Copeland’s minions at the condo, of catching crabs off to the side of crab island, of shooting off peoples sunglasses or putting out their cigarettes with water guns during bowlegs just to piss them off, of…, of…, of…; there’s more to come because half of my heart may be back home with the ghosts of Sydney past but my whole heart is wherever Wes is with Sydney present and future.

I have to move on sometime so…

If it’s gonna happen sometime, then why not now!