Aloha, Hawaii
When I was very young, my mother received one of strangest Christmas cards I’d ever seen. For starters, it didn’t seem to be in English, and then to top things off, it was decked out in seashells, sand, and a grass-skirted hula girl. Clearly, whoever sent it was insane and I asked my mom who on Earth would send such a ridiculous card.
“That’s from a very good friend of mine,” she told me. “She lives in Hawaii.”
This was an absolute revelation to me. People LIVE in Hawaii? In my young brain, Hawaii was a place that you only went to if you did well on Wheel of Fortune. The Brady’s vacationed there, Danno “booked ‘em,” Magnum drove around in a convertible, and Don Ho did something, but I wasn’t entirely sure what. Basically, Hawaii was a TV place like Gilligan’s Island – it never dawned on me that real people actually lived there until that Christmas.After the decorations came down and my mom tossed all of the cards we received away, I took the Hawaii card and spent hours of my time trying to find out everything I could about Hawaii. Clearly, people wore grass skirts and lived on sandy beaches. When visiting my grandmother, I found some gawdawful fabric swatches that looked vaguely Hawaiian, and I would concoct strange scenarios in which I would be stranded on a beach in Hawaii with nothing but my Hello Kitty sewing kit and the fabric swatches, and I would have to fashion clothing in order to blend in with the Hawaiians.
As I grew older, I developed a much more realistic idea of Hawaii, but there was still a part of me that was absolutely fascinated by the islands. I felt a tug from Hawaii – it seemed to beckon me closer, calling out to me. To me, it felt like fate. I was MEANT to live in Hawaii. Of course, by the time I reached middle school, I dismissed it as just another one of my flights of fancy. When I realistically look at all of the things from my childhood that seemed to be “fate,” I would be best friends with Chewbacca, Twiki from Buck Rogers and Chaka from Land of the Lost. My dad would be BJ McKay, Sheriff Lobo, or Darryl Hall (depending on what year I was imagining). Oh… and I would live in the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. Living in Hawaii seemed like just as much of a pipe dream as all of the others.
The “fated-ness” of me in Hawaii was piqued again briefly when I was engaged to a man that lived there. It seemed like fate squared – the man of my dreams PLUS my dream of Hawaii in one neatly wrapped package. Unfortunately, the man of my dreams turned out to be more of a nightmare and my dream of Hawaii was just that: a dream. A nice one, but just a dream, none the less.
In 1998, I actually married the man of my dreams and made him promise that we would stay in California. To this day, I have no idea what I was thinking when I made him promise that. Being a Navy man, I had frightening images of being shipped off to Norfolk or Pensacola – and while I’m sure those places are perfectly fine, the Atlantic is a poor substitute for the mighty Pacific. That request – the one to stay in California – is the only concession I’ve ever asked for in our marriage, and it was, thankfully, chucked out the window in 2000.
I remember the day well. Jim was up for orders and I had persistently reminded him that we wanted to STAY in San Diego. He was still in hot water with me because he had come home one day to inform me that, despite plans to get OUT of the Navy and try life as a civilian, he had re-enlisted for another 4 years… in fact, he was going to go career. Without telling me first. With the amount of fireworks it cause, and with the number of times I pummeled him with the “Remember, you PROMISED me we would stay in California!” litany, I can see now why he reacted the way he did…
“Honey,” he said as he came through the door. He was obviously worried and seemed upset. “I have some bad news, I’m so, so sorry.”
Now, I was worried. It was obviously about orders – it had been an ongoing discussion between us and that day was THE day that he had to make his final decision. I’m was terrified that we’d end up in Guam or Norfolk or any other number of craptastic duty stations. Instead, I heard this:
“We don’t have a choice. We’re going to have to move to Hawaii. Nothing else is available. I’m so sorry!”
And there it was: Hawaii.
It seemed weird to me that something I had secretly been pining for all my life was coming true. While on the surface of things, I like to dismiss such vagaries as “fate” and “destiny,” there are just some things in my life that have fallen into my lap in ways that cannot be described in any other way (remind me to post about how I met my husband later on, and you’ll get my point). While I always felt drawn to Hawaii and somehow connected to it, I never really allowed myself to believe that what I felt was anything more than wishful thinking. But, suddenly, there it was right in front of me – we would not only be living in Hawaii, we would be paid to do it.
After putting him at ease (I mean, can anyone REALLY be upset about being told they have to move to Hawaii?!), we began planning. December 8, 2000, we boarded a plane and said goodbye to the mainland – and while Hawaii is completely different than what my 5 year-old brain ever imagined, it is also the first place I’ve ever felt like I truly belonged. The people, the customs, the weather – everything about this land that makes it quintessentially HAWAII – have become comfortable, familiar and home to me.
And, like the driving desire to get to the islands, after 9 years, I am starting to feel that same driving desire to leave. As beautiful and wonderful and life-altering as it is, I cannot think of Hawaii as the place I will grow old. Hawaii is a magical place but there are drawbacks that keep me from thinking that this would be a great place to set down my roots.
All that being said, we’ve gotten our marching orders (figuratively – we’re still waiting on the literal ones to come in) and we’re set to leave the island sometime between late March and early May of next year. While I’m excited to start this new chapter of my life, there’s also a little bit of fear in the mix. There are still a lot of unknowns at this point, and none of them are doing much to ease that fear. If “scaredcited” was a word, it would sum up our feelings about embarking on this new leg of our journey perfectly.
To commemorate my time in the islands, over the next few months, I’ll be posting little essays about the things I’ll miss about Hawaii… and, of course, the things I will enjoy leaving behind.
In the end, though, this is what is important: Hawaii has become a part of me. I will take it with me where ever I go. I am fundamentally a different and better person than I was before I came here, and I have the warm aloha of Hawaii (and the people who live here) to thank for that. I will miss it and will be making the most of my remaining time here.
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