Every day I get texts and pictures from my best friends who are living the life I chose to leave 4 months ago. A life I thought I hated (my last post), but am now missing more and more every day. No, I don't miss settling for low-paying jobs to pay my ridiculously high rent, losing my bike, fighting with my landlord or praying I don't die just trying to get from work to home.
But maybe I do. Those really are the only things I had to worry about. My daily decisions typically consisted of whether to nap by the pool or on the beach; where to watch the most amazing sunset on earth; and where to get cheap drinks and dance until I couldn't stand anymore. I've been thinking a lot about my time there, but I've gotten past the bad and can only focus on the good, because it was perfect. So here's the post I promised myself I'd write shortly after my last post (in October): here's the good part of Key West, and the reasons I may not come home when I go back in a few weeks.
Getting to Key West was a whirlwind of rash decisions, quick plans and lots of tears. When we got there, it was raining and, if you've ever been around me when it's raining or even threatening to rain, you know that I consider rain the ultimate bad omen (mostly because I hate it). When we checked into the hostel we'd reserved for the first night, I felt nothing but dread. I had no cell service (an annoyance I do not miss), couldn't connect to wifi, and no plans or ideas for jobs or places to live. But then Talullah* took me on a tour of the island. We started off in a gathering of strip malls surrounded by parking lots full of potholes and trailer parks, but then somehow we were on the water. I was never able to decide what my favorite view in Key West was, but the first look out over the calm, crystal clear water dotted with sail boats and backed by a perfect Carolina blue sky (post-rain), was the one that absolutely took my breath away, then replaced it with warm sea air and a sigh of relief. This was going to be my home. And it was more than amazing.
After a bike ride through a town that looked so strange, so different than the town I now know, we stopped at one of Key West's million tourist destinations, and perhaps my favorite (in theory): the Southernmost Point. By this time, the sun had set, it was still about 97 degrees, and the wind was whipping around the corner of the island. Even in the dark, I knew that, staring out towards Cuba, I was seeing something amazing.
The next few days went by in a blur - I woke up, put on clothes that wouldn't suffocate me in the heat as I rode my bike, but were presentable enough to go into every store on Duval street and ask for an application. Perhaps my favorite of these first few days was my second on the job hunt. Talullah had an interview of her own, so after she led me from our hostel to Duval, I grabbed some applications, then pondered a place to sit down and fill them out. I certainly wasn't going to go home and I most definitely was not going to sit out in the heat. Then I remembered seeing rainbow flags early in my journey, so I stuffed the application into my backpack (which also contained a snorkel, a bathing suit and flipflops, which became standard during my time there) and hopped onto my bike and set off to gayer pastures. Apparently Key West used to be a gay haven, but nowadays the gay is focused in one area, which was much further away than I had originally thought. But I found the bar - open-air, as they all are - took a seat and ordered a vodcran. It was no later than 11:30am, but, hey, when in Rome. As I began to drink and fill out my application to work in the retail store at Margaritaville, I realized where I was: a gay bar full of strangers. So I perked myself up, opened my shirt a little and tried to look open to approaches (and free drinks). Unfortunately no one approached, but I did get myself a free drink. "no I think I'm oka... okay, sure," I said when the bartender offered me a second drink. As he set it down and I reached for my wallet, he informed me that it was free - happy hour all day: buy one, get one free. And so began my love/hate relationship with Key West (I loved it, it hated me).
I was a little buzzed when I hopped back on my bike and got back to Margaritaville to turn in my application. I wasn't going to get the job anyway, so, looking back on it, who cares if I smelled like vodka. By some stroke of luck, Talullah's job "interview" was taking place at a close-by bar, Fat Tuesdays (more stories to come). I walked in to find her and we both greeted each other the same way: "I'm drunk." It was probably after noon at this point. So then the guy that she was interviewing with bought me a drink, and so began my love affair with Fat Tuesdays (still think about 44 Magnums every day). I don't really remember what happened the rest of that day.
Probably the next positive thing that happened was meeting our first Key West best friend. When we first met her, we had no idea she'd become such a light in our lives, but that's probably because she was Talullah's boss. In her we found a friend that was actually close to our age, had a car, knew everything about the island and, by some stroke of luck, was willing to hang out with us more than once. Every day, really. ---
---Folivia* was basically our only friend for awhile. She always told us we were her only friends too, but I think she just said that to make us feel better about ourselves. The best thing about Folivia was that she went out with us most nights, even though she doesn't drink. I couldn't count on both hands the number of times during the middle of the day I was drunk in the backseat of her SUV, telling her I love her every five minutes. That wasn't just the alcohol talking; I really do love her that much.
As you read this, I'm sure you're picking up on a common theme: day drinking. It was my favorite thing about Key West. Sure, I put drinking at the top of my list of favorite things in any place and at any time of day, but nothing compares to day drinking on an island in the Caribbean.
After I started my first job downtown (before I had any friends other than Folivia), I left work every day, went to Fat Tuesday, then to Mallory Square to watch the sun set by myself (pause and google "Mallory Square Sunset" right now. I'll wait). After the sunset, I'd go back to Fat's (or any other bar, really) and begin night drinking, my second-favorite thing about Key West.
That leads me to our second and third Key West best friends. Sunflower* and Princess* were the only people our own age I have ever seen that were bigger messes than us. Neither of them can stand to be alone, so they were always together. And if they weren't together, they were calling me. I woke up every afternoon to a missed call and a text from Princess that said "what are you doing today?" It was after I met these two that I really started hating Key West a lot less. I should be able to spend days telling stories about my time with Sunflower and Princess, but most memories get a little blurry after the first few hours. My favorite memory with them was one of our first days together. We spent the day on a boat with a bunch of men who were trying to fish/catch lobster; it was probably bad enough that Talullah and I had invited ourselves, but these guys probably knew they weren't going to really get anything done when we showed up with two other blonde girls carrying a case of beer. I drank two Four Lokos on that boat before they just decided to pull up to a small island. Princess and I got to know each other while I watched her put her cigarette directly into the water five seconds after lighting it. A couple times. I don't remember much about that day after that, aside from doing handstands against the boat and doing splits in the sand. At some point that weekend Princess and I were also covered head-to-toe in someone else's blood, but that's a different story for a different day.
And because that story devolved into a love letter to Princess, here is all you need to know about my friendship with Sunflower:
No doubt, the best thing about living in Key West was moving out of Key West. Going back to visit, though, is a different story. I spent six days back on the island a few months after I moved away and I didn't want to leave. Mostly because I couldn't get off the couch the entire last day of my visit.
Those six days are a big blurry whirlwind, so here's a run-down: I spent $100 on one dinner (twice), cracked my phone screen, ran off by myself to a bar I'm pretty sure I was banned from when I lived there, lost my phone, found my phone, offended all the locals at Hogfish, dropped all of Sunflower's leftovers on the ground, danced by myself all night and threw up all day, among several other things. All while wearing overall shorts and a black felt sunhat with devil horns on top. Stay tuned for that entire story in the distant future when I'm finally brave enough to listen to my friends tell me all the rest of the things I did.
*Real names omitted to allow deniability
No comments:
Post a Comment