I really am, in so many ways but especially having the fortune to have traveled to and seen so many places all around the world starting pretty much the minute I was born.
I'm so grateful to have lucked out and have been able to experience so many new places in such a short amount of time but then again I'm also sad. I've been to one place in particular every summer of my life that I have grown an immense attachment to, it became my very own oasis, my own little dreamworld where I'd escape from all my anxieties, all my knit picky insecurities and problems...it became the one place I could be myself completely and be entirely happy with myself and with life. It became my home.
This place, this island, is so small it's left off of most world maps. It was so insignificant to many, only significant to those who lived there, that it was pure, empty of developers and heavy tourism. The only people that would vacation there were people of generations of families that have been going there for years, my mom spent a entirety of her hippie life there with a handful of her closest friends. These were real people, people who all had this deep underlining understanding and urge to keep this place untouched by greedy developers who lacked the necessary attachment and care for the island to understand the allure of it. The allure of the island being its small houses, with their tons of land and goats, the lack of electricity and running water, the lack of Internet and cable. But of course like every other place in the world, this special place has been found, it's gemlike quality realized and tourists flock to it. They have been building giant houses, decked out with Internet and flat screen tvs with cable for their kids who lack the imagination and appreciation to play outside, they build houses spanning on as much land as possible, add giant infinity pools as if making a joke of the crystal blue water and super soft sand the beaches have to offer. hotels are being made directly unto the untouched beaches, cars and motorcycles are everywhere, green grass is being put down with sprinklers on an island that is dry, and lacks water. Etc. Clubs are being built to attract another type of person, to attract the type of people who don't care, or maybe just dont understand, how they are adding to the demise of a once perfect island, of my own paradise. My mom and our family friends remind me to look on the brighter side of things, at least I got to see the island how it once was, at least I was able to experience it's true beauty before it was destroyed and that perhaps it's time to move on. I of course wish I could do that, wish I could be optimistic and move on but instead I'm depressed, I think about how I lost my home, the one place I could be completely and entirely happy. I dwell on the fact that for the last several summers I watched the beaches swell up with tourists, I watched us lose "our" house to rich foreigners who could afford to pay the recently ridiculously raised prices, and there was nothing I could ever do. My keeping this place, the name of this island a secret to every one I knew didn't help one bit because like all places is was meant to be found eventually and ruined. The truth is people are greedy and stupid, they are willing to ruin beautiful places to make money, they are willing to forever change another persons heaven to earn a few extra bucks. For those last years of visiting this place I'd pretend, almost as a consolation, that I'd work really hard and make tons of money to buy the island and save it from the developers, save it from becoming just another tourist attraction but recently I have had to stop lying to myself and face the truth-I lost my island and everything it brought with it a long time ago and it's time to move on.
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