Made it to the island!

Here ye, here ye! I haveth arrived! (written Sunday night)

I have made it to the island in one piece! After landing at the airport, it took me literally only 30 minutes to deplane, get my rental car, stuff a couple bags in said car, and go to the belt to grab my other two bags which both happened to be some of the first of the luggage. I mean, this is just unheard of! God was really watching out for me because I was already dog tired. I then safely traversed my way to my new home and proceeded to huff and puff all my bags into the house. Did I immediately unpack? HECK NO. Y’all, I was SO TIRED. Yet, I was SO WIRED!

Let me share something a little embarrassing. When I saw our plane was getting lower and I could see the lights of all the buildings on the island, I started to tear up. Then, before I knew it, I had tears streaming down my face! But it wasn’t from sadness per se… it was this feeling – that feeling you have when you’re going home after being away for so long. I was thinking to myself that yes, I’m sad that I have left everyone on the mainland and I am here alone, but I also feel like I’m coming home.

I guess that’s why the islanders say “Welcome Home”. (this is where I roll my eyes because I now truly understand why they say it and I feel silly for ever not getting it.)

Ok, back to my arrival. I got into the house and my landlord (bless him) left the bed in the house with clean sheets so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on an air mattress for my first day of work. What did I do with said mattress that was currently sitting in the middle of the room? I moved it into my room because I have issues with sleeping in that much open space, and also because I am legit afraid of the dark and I need to close every door and cover every opening I possibly can. Don’t worry, Bob! I’m going to move it into the other house when I build my bed frame this week because Kmart has a sale on some beds and I’m looking to get one of those! (shoutout to my landlord!). After getting the bed into the room, I calmed down enough from the anxiety of traveling to take a moment to take in my surroundings. I was here – finally, officially, permanently. It still blows my mind that this is happening. And even though I am supposed to just pass out from being exhausted, my body was still a little hyped up on adrenaline. So, I call the boyfriend and FaceTime him while I start unpacking a little bit because I will need some clothes for tomorrow and such. I don’t do too much, I save most of it for today (Sunday!) because I knew that I would need a good project to do to kind of clear my mind. After putting a couple things away, I brush and floss and prepare for the night. I let the boyfriend go do his own ritual and I lay down in bed. I am sprawled all the way out – looking like a sea star on the beach. I’m hot because I am still amped up. After laying for a few more minutes, my body temperature starts to regulate. After about 30 minutes I am now freezing cold and take out my most prized possession: My sea lamprey blanket that my best friend gifted me about two years ago for my birthday. Y’all know I wasn’t about to leave that blanket behind!! I snuggled up with that and attempted to fall asleep. When I say attempted, I mean “fall asleep for a little while only to be woken up by the dogs barking at the roosters which leads the roosters to crow at the dogs and basically all of the animals are telling the other to back up off their territory.”

I wake up Sunday at 0430 (that’s 4:30 AM for y’all non-military folk) and I cannot go back to sleep.

Here I am on an island that literally has something called “island time” and my butt is up at 0430 thinking about “what do I need to do? Where do I need to go? What can I organize? Do I have enough storage at this moment to put everything away? How do I get rid of this clutter???????”

Legit the first thing I did was drive downtown and sit on a bench. I just enjoyed the moments I took to just sit there, inhaling the salty air, and then proceeding to take a picture or two (you KNOW I have to). After that, I went back to my place.

I feel like after working and living for so long with not a lot of things out at one time, or not a lot of material items in general, I have learned that I really do not like clutter and not having a place for things. I think this definitely added to my anxiety for the day. So, I set out to put more away. Thankfully, my landlord left a bunch of hangers and two storage basket dressers. I hung up what I could, and the rest of my clothes fit perfectly into the tall basket dresser. I started putting odds and ends into the other basket dresser because it had variable sizes of baskets. Though I still have a large box of things to put away, just placing my clothes in a dresser really helped to start my day off on a positive note; something to show that I accomplished one thing today. I threw on some clothes and headed out the door.

I took the rental car basically all over today; you’re welcome, car – I showed you the [island] world. I went to several different grocery stores, but made the base comparison using the store called “Plaza West.” I went in there, walked around, and wrote down key items I was going to need and recorded their price next to the item name in my phone notepad. This list was pretty long which also helped me to realize that I need to make sure I have enough money to cover rent for 2 months in case this whole Coronavirus thing has my paychecks waning. Anyway, after writing these things down, I went to about 3 other stores and compared the prices. Turns out, Plaza West (and probably Plaza East, too) is the most affordable store between the major players. So, from here on out I will be shopping there. Accomplishment number 2 achieved!

In all the day’s hustle and bustle, I still found time to go over to the Internal Revenue building where I’d have to go after I picked up my car, and I also drove over to where I was to have orientation on Monday (but not anymore, they changed it up!). Y’all, I was trying to be prepared because I wasn’t about to look dumb my first day and I’m not trying to waste time looking for places. I also decided to go check out the customs area that I thought I would be going to for when my car arrived. Drove there, saw some great ocean views, and when I got to the guard shack, I asked, “I have my car shipping to the island. Is this the customs port I would need to bring it to?” to which the guard said, “no, if you’re with Crowley you have to take the car to the customs at the airport.”

WELL IT’S A GOOD THING I CHECKED.

I’m just going to go ahead and say that I’m proud of myself for trying to be more prepared for things this coming week. Without that information from the guard, I would have driven about 20 – 30 minutes out of my way only to go back to the side of the island I was already on! I’m just going to go ahead and pat myself on the back.

*pat pat*

The evening started to wind down and I saw my new (to me) neighbor out on his “gallery” aka porch on the second floor. I ask if I could join him, he said yes, and we proceeded to talk about the island and what there is to offer. Food, people, hiking, A FREAKING RAINFOREST, diving, lionfish hunting, food trucks, nightlife, etc. I mean, we had a great time talking about it all and he showed me some amazing pictures of tidepools he had found while following some mountain goats on his way to the north western lighthouse. I’m just like, “wtf dude that is so randomly beautiful that you chose to follow those goats and they led you directly to some treasure of the island!!!” I got to learn about him and in general, that was awesome because he is an interesting dude. I can tell we are going to be good friends and thank goodness because that means I found my new hiking buddy on the island! Hip-hip-hooray!

The last bits of this evening have been relaxing. My first day of work is tomorrow and I’m glad they changed the location to my actual office because I can literally walk 15 minutes. But I’m not going to do that tomorrow, I’ve got other things on my plate that will require the car. Though, it’s just nice to know that I could walk to and from work if I wanted to. This is the first time anything like that has happened. I’ve always had to drive AT LEAST 30 minutes one way to work. This is a very nice change.

I look forward to the morning, even though there will be orientation which means a lot of the not-as-much-fun paperwork; rules, regulations, guidelines (I feel like all 3 of those words mean the same thing) and other such things to get me started for my new position.

The time is nigh! Prepare thy steed!

I’m obviously tired because I’m stuck in medieval times aka Monty Python moments. It’s time for bed.

Signing off,
-Curby

*written while slouched in bed Sunday night before realizing I have no internet to actually post…*