I didn’t know then that I was living in a place and a time I would someday miss.
For a long time, I think part of me associated that feeling with the Keys themselves. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I don’t have to go back to Key Largo or Islamorada to find it.
I can find it on a boat with my son. I can find it sitting beside the water, walking barefoot on a beach, fishing even when nothing is biting, or feeling the sun on my face with a breeze coming off the water.
The place may be different, but the feeling is the same.
Maybe that’s what I’ve learned most from looking back. We can’t always go back to the places we remember exactly as they were. Places change. We change too. But we can pay attention to what made those times so special and find ways to bring pieces of that feeling into the life we’re living now.
The Florida Keys I grew up in may exist mostly in my memories these days, but what they gave me never really left. Every once in a while, I get back on the water, feel that familiar sense of freedom and peace, and for a little while, I’m right back there again.