I feel like I've driven in circles around this rock for hours. Actually, I have been driving for hours now that I see what time it is. I've run out of gas trying to find my way to the apartment that I rented sight unseen from some guy who's name I can't even pronounce. I found it online from a list Rachel had conveniently sent me of available ones she thought I could afford. I stared at the list and the prices that accompanied each available apartment and I'm pretty sure I had a small heart attack or mini-stroke.
I've coasted off the road to what appears to be a lookout spot and I'm just spent. Emotionally and physically from traveling and driving and no sleep from New Jersey to this rock with layovers in an all too busy and loud airport and the hop skip and a jump to the island and I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing. I'm two steps beyond tired and I'm two meals past hungry. How did this become my life? How did I end up so miserable in everyone else's paradise? I get out of the car to catch my breath, get some fresh air, possibly collect my thoughts. Diamond Head the sign says of the scenic spot I've coasted into. I look around at the beauty surrounding me.
And I hate it.
I despise everything about this place because it took me away from the place I loved, the people I loved, the job I loved and was so good at back home. But I'm here for Gracie. God, I can not believe that Rachel brought my daughter to this pineapple infested hellhole and the only way I would get to see her more than twice a year was if I followed.
This is all for Grace⦠I have to keep telling myself that. All for my daughter who means the world to me. She's my everything. I left everyone that I loved and cared about, sold everything I had left from the divorce, all so I could be a part of my little girl's life. It took more time than I had liked to get everything squared away and I'm sure that Gracie wondered if I was actually going to move. I called Rachel the moment I landed, asking if I could stop and see Grace and she had the nerve to tell me they weren't even on the island. Off to the mainland for the weekend to one of Stan's new hotels. I'd have to wait until Grace got out of school Monday afternoon. I wanted to scream.
I step over the stone wall and settle in, waiting for a kind soul to come by and either offer me a ride or offer to get me a can of gas and point me in the right direction of what I'm sure is going to be a lousy apartment. No one comes for two hours. My cell phone has died, the charger buried in my luggage that is still lost somewhere at the airport and I feel completely lost and alone.
It really is a beautiful place, if I would just give it a chance. Looking down over the expanse of the ocean, seeing all the different shades of blue merge into one another as the waves crash into the shore. I should feel like I'm on top of the world, in such a beautiful place. But I don't. And as I sit here and soak up the sun that my skin hasn't seen nor felt since last fall, I wonder if this place will ever feel like home.
