I Fell in Love With Hawaii
It was just supposed to be the trip of a lifetime
For years I've said that my heart is in Michigan, my soul remains in the American West, and I carry both with me everywhere I live and travel.
I'm a freshwater girl, raised on the shores of lakes and stretches of soft, silky cream-colored sand. I'm a mountain girl, a lover of tall peaks and luscious valleys, vista views and the rush of water fed by snowmelt. I am a Midwesterner, more accustomed to the threat of tornadoes and blizzards than earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis.
Hawaii’s exotic landscape called to me. I needed an escape. I wanted to get as far away as I could from reality without using my passport. And I wanted out of the cold.
I expected to like the 50th state. I expected to enjoy exploring and learning and having a vacation. I expected to come home with memories and stories to tell our kids and friends and family.
But I didn’t expect to fall in love.
Everyone I knew that had been to Hawaii before us talked about tropical paradise. The pictures I had seen showed us a vacation spot full of beautiful scenery. The travel guides included descriptions of cultural and historical landmarks. All of those details had already set a pretty high bar by the time we boarded our plane in coldish Indianapolis for six nights on two separate islands. I had every reason to believe that we were going to have the time of our lives.
But I had no idea Hawaii would take my heart and steal it. Like a teenager falling in love for the first time on summer vacation, I fell hard.
It wasn’t just that my husband and I were experiencing our first real break away from everyone in years. It wasn’t that I was forced to put everything at home aside and just be. It wasn’t the fact that, despite the time change and strange sleep patterns, I actually felt rested and relaxed.
After years of being afraid of the ocean because there are things in there that will kill you, I swam and walked along clean and sparkling coastlines I had only seen in travel brochures. I watched schools of fish dance in the crashing waves and sea turtles chilling along the coastline. I let grains of black sand slip through my fingers without leaving a trace. I listened to the waves crash against a ruggedly beautiful coastline that continues to tell the story of birth and destruction and rebirth.
After years of believing in the superiority of the Rocky Mountains because they are tall and rough and occasionally snowcapped, I discovered the intensely rugged beauty of mountains covered by lush vegetation and volcanic rock and home to dormant and active volcanoes.
After years of immersing myself in the history of the continental US, I learned about the complicated and fascinating history of islands that have experienced both immense freedom and soul-crushing oppression.
I saw a state doing its very best to cultivate an eco-friendly economy without plastics and excessive trash. I saw homes and businesses moving toward energy independence with solar panels soaking up the South Pacific sunshine.
I experienced paradise and I didn’t want to pull my feet out of the water as we turned to say goodbye.
I’ve always felt that vacations should be both re-energizing and full of new experiences and they usually are. (Just don’t refer back our vacation last summer when we were preparing to move across the country at the same time as going on a family vacation that stretched to the East Coast.) But this time was different. While I’ve been on the long road toward healing for a long time, this vacation brought me back to myself. For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful again. I felt genuine peace. And I fell head-over-heels in love with a state I had only hoped to ever visit once.
It might actually be a minor miracle that we returned home.
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