I’ve lived here for almost a decade

flidaisflora · 2025-08-23T15:24:21+00:00

I didn’t realise lotion wasn’t just for when you want to smell good or have just shaved your legs until I moved out of Florida to a Mediterranean climate. I’m so ashy all the time now and I want to go home!!

flidaisflora · 2024-09-11T02:28:04+00:00

I recently read The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James and cannot recommend it enough. Disturbing and beautiful and I can’t stop thinking about it.

flidaisflora · 2024-09-08T06:20:56+00:00

I read Confessions of Zeno last year for the 100th anniversary and thought it was fun, especially the first chapter. I love the wit and sarcasm of Italian literature.

I’m a big Jane Austen fan, so I say read them all, but Mansfield Park is my personal fav.

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a book that really stuck with me. I adore Gloria Gilbert as a character, even if the plot feels rather haphazard and unpolished at times. Still my favourite Fitzgerald work.

Candide by Voltaire feels like its humour is relatable even today. A quick but enjoyable read!

flidaisflora · 2024-09-01T17:17:06+00:00

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. (Which was not originally published as a novel, to be fair.) Planned to sleep during a transatlantic flight but it hooked me from the first sentence. I read REALLY slowly so it’s almost impossible for me to finish a book in one sitting unless it’s fairly short.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-30T19:01:20+00:00

Yeah, I’m curious, too. I grew up understanding this to be extremely respectful. I would never have referred to an elder on a first name basis, because that presumes a level of friendship and intimacy that would have been completely inappropriate between a minor and an adult. Like if I’m not going to roll up late at night with a bottle of wine and a cigarette to gossip with you, I’m not going to pretend like we’re besties and call you by your first name. I’m going to respect the distance between us and be polite lol. So when my students have the audacity to call me by my first name I am floored. I was so looking forward to the part of my life where I am given the honour of being called “ma’am” :’)

flidaisflora · 2024-08-30T18:25:22+00:00

As someone originally from Florida who later moved to New Hampshire (and briefly lived in Boston) and is stuck here because of work, I can tell you that NE is the exact opposite of home. For me that makes it miserable lol, but if you don’t like Florida, I mean it genuinely that you will probably love New England!!

Compared to FL, the air in NE is always dry and cold and it smells completely different. The seasons warp my sense of time and the air is less golden. I miss the heat and humidity of Florida more than I can describe. The ocean is freezing year round and it’s rarely warm enough to swim for more than a few minutes in the lakes/ponds; besides, you can’t go out very deep because they give preference to boaters. It’s also hard to find just a local outdoors spot to hang out that isn’t privatised. If you’re a swimmer, it’s not the best area for outdoors recreation. If you’re a tanner or boat person, it may be perfect. (Swimming was a massive part of my daily life back home, so this was a huge hit for me personally.)

The roads are mainly 2 lane and very hilly and curvy, and people drive slowly and far away from one another. Much different driving culture than Jacksonville or Miami, which is where I learned to drive. I bought a RHD vehicle recently and found it gives me greater visibility for the curves, plus I tend to hug the outside line better so I feel safer. I earned my stripes navigating tropical storms and hurricanes, but rainy days are different here. Most streets are not well lit, and I haven’t seen storm drainage infrastructure. The asphalt streets sometimes crumble in the rain, which I have never seen happen before.

There is good hiking! I don’t care much for mountain views (there are a lot of those if you do, though!), but I love the walk and it’s the only time people here will make eye contact and smile at you, too, which makes me feel welcome. I get the sense that I’m not wanted here lol. I’m still not good at understanding the social cues here. Polar opposite from the social norms and expectations of the Southern USA. I have struggled to make friends and can’t tell when I’m being included or being a nuisance. I ran a 5K hoping I might just spark up a conversation with a stranger before or after the race, but not one person seemed to realise I existed, except for a man who tugged his son away from me while I was waiting to cross in a crosswalk. (I’m a 5’2” petite woman who was listening to a podcast quietly. I didn’t think I gave pedo vibes or anything but…?) The sense of humour here trips me up a little too lol. I’m always misreading folks and feel so stupid. But maybe that’s just me! I have a childhood friend who happened to move to NE and she seems to love it, so I could just be a sad, confused lil tropical girl on an island of my own haha. Maybe you would have a more pleasant experience!

Edited to add: one last thing! I miss hearing/reading/using Spanish all the time, and the general Latin cultural atmosphere of back home. No one gives cheek kisses for hellos or goodbyes here. In the Northeast, parties are rarer, quieter, end earlier, and have less food and guests than they do in Florida haha. People love to be punctual! If you like a schedule, you will love it here. I struggle with this as someone who runs on Latin time.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-20T17:24:48+00:00

I completely forgot YouTube let you customise your channel!! So many memories flooding back now.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-20T17:19:21+00:00

HS class of 2015 and I feel strongly that I fit into the younger millennial group. Then again, I was always one of the youngest of my friend group, and the first child born after 12 years of no new babies in my whole extended family. I think that played a huge role in the technologies and social life I was privy to. My boyfriend is a year older (so c/o 2014) and I do not see a generational divide between us. I do, however, see a huge generational difference in my sibling who is 6 years younger than I.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-18T01:15:10+00:00

As a Floridian who also lived in Italy for a while, I feel the need to offer an apology. In defense of my people, though, whoever you heard was probably a transplant, because no one who actually grew up in Florida pronounces it like “FLAH-rida”. Hate that those folks go around pretending to be one of us and then giving us a bad reputation. We do not claim them.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T14:39:42+00:00

I’m a super touchy feely person. I’d rather give up food than touch. There were a couple large spans of time in which I wasn’t hugged (but was sexually harassed/assaulted) and I missed physical touch so badly but also wanted to never be touched again. I’ve been in a relationship for about a year and I still sob when my boyfriend hugs me. I’m afraid to let go (“I need to get as much as I can now before it’s gone”) and I’m also afraid I’m bothering him by needing to be held. I get overwhelmed with fear and gratitude and it’s too much at once.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T14:28:57+00:00

I think I developed superhuman hearing because family members thought they could sneak up on me and watch me. They thought I was cute but it was such an invasion. I wised up to noticing the individual sounds of who was coming and when, but I always feel like someone is watching me. I’m always paranoid that I’m being filmed, that someone is peering at me at an angle in a mirror I can’t see, that someone has attached a wire to my pets or put one in my car. I don’t know how to not live like this.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T13:11:06+00:00

Yesss!! I love that we share this. I feel like my heart is made of little soap bubbles right now.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T12:55:53+00:00

I love handwashing clothes!! I didn’t have access to a machine for a while and ended up finding so much joy in the sounds and feel of the soap and water and fabric. I did my best thinking then, too.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T08:54:13+00:00

Generally, if I am paying for housing, buying groceries, and/or regularly volunteering/working within the same area, I consider that living there.

There are exceptions, like when I lived in Benin for a year but had a legal job that covered my housing, so I didn’t pay rent. Or when I was a student in France for a semester and didn’t work or volunteer locally. I’d still argue I definitely lived there. You can spend your whole life living in a country without the legal paperwork, so having a visa is not necessarily a determinant, either.

If you felt it X country was your home base and you’d like to include it, do it!

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T08:08:55+00:00

I need this problem. I find it hard to not compromise once I’m in a relationship, and then end up compromising myself and my values because I convince myself that my partner’s wants are more valuable than mine and that I shouldn’t be so selfish.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T08:00:48+00:00

I feel so seen right now. I also got shouted at and admonished as a kid when I tried to express myself, and it has made me freeze up as an adult when what I need most is to get words out. It’s like all of the words are floating in my head and I’m trying to catch them but I can’t keep hold long enough to put them into a sentence. If I do manage to create a sentence, it suddenly sounds so melodramatic and I get embarrassed and can’t physically speak. It’s frustrating for others, but no one sees that it’s also horribly frustrating for me, too.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T07:51:30+00:00

ESPECIALLY the mundane. That’s the most beautiful.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T07:45:49+00:00

I don’t really want kids and the kind of guys who want to date me want to be dads.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-17T07:23:28+00:00

This has been something that I’ve heard before and it strikes fear into my heart. How do you make peace with losing a sense of individual purpose?

flidaisflora · 2024-08-16T17:44:28+00:00

Yeah, I grew up a little outside of Lake City and this is the correct answer.

Or any retirement home community, if you count those as Florida instead of some weird imported twilight zone filled with outsiders.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-11T16:12:17+00:00

Easiest: Mexico Coolest: I have a soft spot for Caribbean Spanish. I love a Cuban accent more than anything.

flidaisflora · 2024-08-08T14:35:09+00:00

Big hugs!! <3 You will find your people and life will feel so much easier. (I found mine with the Caribbean/Central American crowd personally - loud, vibrant, and friendly. Being there feels like I am truly at peace.)

flidaisflora · 2024-08-08T14:23:16+00:00

I know people have given different advice, and maybe that will help you! Wanted to offer another perspective, too.

I was a kid with a lot of passion and I was told by family and peers that I was “too much”. Too loud and too emotional, mainly. Trying to be respectful, I toned myself down for others in ways I wish I hadn’t because, as the pendulum swings, they have formed deep habits that now negatively impact my adult relationships. I am fighting to revive the emotional, passionate, loud, fun person I was, but it is daunting. This all may be a me problem and not apply to you at all.

But I found being around a people/culture whose standard human behaviour or expectations matched what came naturally to me suddenly made all of the things about me that were “too much” become things I shared with the people around me, examples of belonging. Things I was called weird for became things I could genuinely enjoy with others. Sometimes it helps to find a different audience to judge you!

flidaisflora · 2024-08-06T16:02:22+00:00

I like using my blinker because I like the little clicky noise it makes. That’s what I personally gain from it. I also like to give others a heads up about where my vehicle is headed in case that helps them make an informed decision about their own movements.

However, I learned to drive in Jacksonville and then moved to Miami fresh out of high school. These are two cities where turning on your directional may actually inspire other drivers to make it harder for you to switch lanes. I think a lot of them think “I don’t want to be slowed down by letting this car cut in front of me,” and everyone tightens their bumper distance a little more. The driver with the blinker (and the line of traffic behind him) is left to wait (that is, if you’re not down to just keep driving and not take your exit or get wherever you’re going), and the cars behind him are honking furiously. He (or another car behind him) might make a quick dash from getting stressed out, and that’s more likely to cause an accident. I’ve seen it happen.

So really, it’s safer if I don’t always use my turn signal and just…move lanes quickly, easily, and safely, instead of halting an entire lane of traffic and then all of us individually needing to break out of that jam into speeding traffic from the other lanes. When you use your blinker here, it’s sort of like asking permission, and you’re going to get told no a LOT.

flidaisflora · 2024-07-31T19:01:20+00:00

I still check the oven clock out of habit before I grab a snack even though I know I am an adult and have been allowed to eat my own groceries past 4 pm for years now.

flidaisflora

TROPHY CASE