27 and standing...
Hawaii is ever changing these days. I just visited home again making two visits in 2006. It isn't the same anymore. It is funny how things change and strange how age creeps up on you. Hawaii is somewhat an isolation now, but a comforting one. You develop a circle of friends who are like you here in the same and they become your family. Friends I would possibly have never met unless I was fortunate enough to live here. Soon enough, they too will be gone as will I. And, unfortunately, we will be older and older. Visiting Florida made me realize how isolated we can become in life. I can't imagine going back to Tennessee right now to see it's evolvement. I would most likely be surprised and saddened. Living in Hawaii and even just traveling across the country shows there is so much more out there than our own little circles we create at home. Home is changing and changing for me. I like that and it enables me to grow. I know some people who have never left home and consider the rest of the world useless. Is it safer?? Or is it naive??

I, myself, find traveling and living in different places to be a growing personality that is otherwise dormant in others who wish to hunker down in one place. It is a unique personality that will force you to become an extrovert in order to find some common ground with the uncommon environment. I just suffered another birthday. My first one here in Hawaii. I remembered old birthdays passed in my old homes far away with old friends and my family who I miss dearly. Most importantly of all this rambling, I turned another year older. I am feeling it but suppose some things never change. Like the smell of your mom's fried chicken, or your sister's smile. Even the sunrise and the smell of rain. All I know is that I am still standing. Maybe not in my old hometown or with my family, but I am here.