Florida Is the Weirdest Place I've Ever Loved
A love letter to humidity, hurricanes, alligators, and the place that quietly became home.
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I’ve lived in enough places to know that every state has its own personality. Some are reserved. Some are polished. Some are convinced they’re more important than everyone else.
Florida, on the other hand, is the eccentric uncle who shows up to Thanksgiving wearing flip-flops, carrying a pet iguana, and insisting he has a foolproof plan to grill the turkey during a tropical storm.
You laugh at him.
Then, somehow, the turkey turns out amazing.
I wasn’t born here, which may explain why I still notice things that lifelong Floridians hardly acknowledge anymore. The first time I saw an alligator sunning itself beside a retention pond in a suburban neighborhood, I thought someone should call Animal Control. The people walking past me barely looked up from their phones.
“Oh, that’s Gary,” they seemed to be saying. “He keeps to himself.”
The wildlife here has absolutely no respect for personal boundaries. Lizards sprint across sidewalks like they own the deed to your property. Sandhill cranes stop traffic because they know they can. Ibis patrol Publix parking lots with the confidence of organized crime bosses collecting protection money in the form of dropped French fries. Even the squirrels seem unusually confident, as if they’ve figured out humans are mostly bluffing.
Then there’s the weather.
I’ve lived in places where meteorologists carefully explain approaching storms over the course of several days. Florida’s forecast is more spontaneous.
At three o’clock the sky is brilliant blue. By three-fifteen it looks like the opening scene of an apocalypse movie. Rain falls so hard you begin wondering whether someone tipped the Gulf of Mexico sideways. Lightning cracks with theatrical enthusiasm, palm trees bend dramatically, and every outdoor plan you’ve made dissolves into a puddle.
By four o’clock the sun is shining again, someone is mowing the lawn, and your neighbor is grilling burgers as if none of it ever happened.
If Florida has taught me anything, it’s that life can completely fall apart for twenty minutes and then unexpectedly become beautiful again.
That’s not just true about the weather.
It’s true about people.
When I first moved here, I wasn’t looking for Florida. I was looking for whatever came next.
Like many of us, I’ve lived several different lives. I’ve been certain about things that later unraveled. I’ve built careers that eventually ended. I’ve held convictions that no longer fit the person I was becoming. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking life was a straight line and accepted that it’s more like wandering through an unfamiliar city without a map.
Florida turned out to be an appropriate place for that kind of wandering.
It’s difficult to take yourself too seriously in a state where hurricanes are given friendly first names and everyone debates whether bottled water or peanut butter is the more essential emergency supply. Floridians prepare for natural disasters with a curious mixture of common sense and optimism.
“We should probably keep an eye on this storm.”
“Absolutely.”
“You think it’ll hit us?”
“Hard to say.”
“Want to go to Publix?”
Of course we do.
Publix deserves its own chapter in Florida history. Somewhere between the bakery, the deli, and the impossibly cheerful employees asking if they can help you find something, it became more than a grocery store. It’s practically a community center with better sandwiches. I don’t know what they put in those chicken tender subs, but I’m fairly certain they’re responsible for maintaining statewide morale during hurricane season.
And speaking of hurricanes, there’s something oddly comforting about the way Floridians face them together. Neighbors check on neighbors. People share generators, chainsaws, and bags of ice. Complete strangers help one another clear fallen trees. For all the jokes about “Florida Man,” I’ve encountered far more Florida kindness than Florida craziness.
Maybe that’s true everywhere. The headlines just aren’t interested in ordinary goodness.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the places we love aren’t necessarily the most beautiful or the most exciting. They’re the places where our lives quietly unfold. Home isn’t built from postcards or travel brochures. It’s built from favorite restaurants, familiar roads, neighbors who wave, sunsets you’ve watched a hundred times, and ordinary Tuesdays that slowly become the story of your life.
Florida is where I continued writing after I wasn’t sure I had a book in me.
It’s where I met the man who became my husband.
It’s where I’ve laughed with friends, buried old versions of myself, started therapy again when I needed it, and slowly discovered that healing isn’t usually dramatic. Most of the time, it looks like living another ordinary day with a little more honesty than the day before.
Looking back, I realize I didn’t simply move to Florida.
I grew into it.
Its unpredictability made me a little more flexible. Its storms reminded me that bad weather doesn’t last forever. Its beauty taught me to pay attention, because some of the most breathtaking sunsets I’ve ever seen arrived only after skies that looked impossible an hour earlier.
Maybe that’s why I feel at home here.
Florida isn’t polished. Neither am I.
It’s a little loud, occasionally misunderstood, stubbornly resilient, surprisingly generous, and just eccentric enough to keep life interesting.
Come to think of it, we’re probably good for each other.
So go ahead and make the “Florida Man” jokes. I’ll probably laugh right along with you.
Just don’t expect me to live anywhere else.
After all, every family has that one delightfully eccentric relative who embarrasses everyone at reunions but would also drive across the state at two in the morning if you needed help.
America’s just lucky Florida is ours.
And I’m lucky it’s mine.