Under the Florida Sun

Three months into my first relationship, I went to Florida with my boyfriends parents. We fell into the stereotype of queer couples moving all too fast. From the first date, we were full steam ahead on a mighty adventure of love, romance, and young-adult optimism. Within those first three months I spent many nights at his house. Attending the same university, and by mere happenstance he lived less than ten minutes where I lived with my parents. The stars mightily aligned to set this romance to the breakneck speed of ten. In hindsight I get a kick of managing to keep the front without suspension that we were friends and not my first same gender relationship exploding to life.


Florida. Flying most the way across the country with him and his parents was some blind leap of faith that paid wild dividends. It was intimate, intense, but I was poised. It was family lunches, dinners, but for three months in we were a bonded pair. It was a near two hour drive from the beach house to Universal studios, that I struggled to be awake for. It was my first time hitting the beach. The waves rhythmically slapping the shore resonated with my inner child. I would sprint through the mud like wet sand to where the tide deposited seashells and other debris and leap into the oncoming wave. It hurt. It hurt sometimes a lot, but I was lost in the childlike wonder of being tossed, flipped upside down by the crashing waves, to care about scraped knees and a forming headache from the concussive force of my momentum being abruptly halted. It was island time. Vacations weren’t something I was all that familiar with, so the sun-baked beach vibe was enchanting.

I remember distinctly the bottle of fruit loop flavored Vodka we shared. We were on the lower floor, cuddling, worn down from the sun and beach activities binging the Harry Potter movies was a delight. It was some feat of the highest power. I finished my first semester of university and am celebrating holiday break with a strange family welcoming me with my loving arms, the first guy to ever ask me out, and I’m whisked away to Florida. It was beaches, fun in the sun, Harry Potter movies, cuddles, and that bottle of Loopy vodka. In the middle of one of the movies, we paused, stirred by the consumed spirits, we thought it unique, daring to walk down to the beach at night. The moon painted the beach in luminescent silhouette. We held hands and stood at the edge of the tide, letting our feet get splashed by the tide, together. This memory still lingers in a wondrous vein of home. 

    This family, I would soon call mine, his parents, Mom and Dad. This guy, who made eye contact purposefully enough, pulled us like magnets together, changing our course forevermore. It was home. It was home for nine and a half years. Until the sun set on this once romantic dream. The paradise pierced, a family I was all but formally joined to, was removed. A not-so-distant version of myself would’ve called this home, would call this home. I suppose I think home is a merger between dream and good people. One day, you put your stuff down in a new place with different people, and it feels right. One day, you pack much of the same things and head back out to the great wide world with the nomadic inspiration of settling down somewhere again. Sometimes that choice to leave isn’t even our own. But settle down again somewhere, I will.

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