Home

I've spent 17 years here on Maui. I've lived here my entire life, I've loved here, lost here, and made incredible friendships here. I don't know what to say about it anymore. I get into my car with Stoof and we don't know where to go anymore. We've traveled everywhere, done everything, and now we're done. Its like the adventures here are scarcer and scarcer. We have to find them by random coincidence and the lining ups of fates. We had an INCREDIBLE night last night. We started by owl searching, and ended up ghost riding the whip. I felt so free! For the first time in a long time I let go of a little ball inside my stomach with so much tension in it. I love my friends and I was having the time of my life watching the stars blur past us while driving down a deserted road in the middle of the night. Even this most epic of adventure couldn't fully make up for the fact that I'm BORED here. I feel so stuck here, like I need to get out into the world and see the bigger picture. I need to know what I'm capable of and what college will be like. I want the next step to be here already. I need the next step to happen. I'm scared, but I know that I'll be ok, I'll grow up and be an adult and start my real life. And when I return here during breaks and vacations I can reminisce about the past and find some more adventures here. Its easier when you're working with less time. I'll always love it here, it is my home, but I need to get out of here. I need to leave this island behind for now. I'll always remember the times here, I'll always love the people and the places, but for now I need to say goodbye.

Old Friends

The world is a many layered and confusing place. For my graduation people have sent an outpouring of cards, gifts, money and well wishes. Mostly from people I've never met who only know me as Roger Grantham's daughter. A great friend of my dad's who has schizophrenia recently came to town to give me a graduation gift. It was a 1500 dollar tag heuer watch. It was so nice and he said if dad was here it would've come from him so I needed to have it. It was so kind of him, even though he claimed that homeland security was watching and didn't pack any clothes for the trip, only knives and screwdrivers. He's crazy, but he loved my dad and it inspired me to give like that even though he's never met me. Its so...weird. Very kind and generous, but its so strange that he's not here but people liked and remember him so well that they'd support me in this way. It also makes me so sad. He didn't see the greatest moments of my life, my May Dav when I was queen, 8th grade graduation, my business awards, the day I got into college, my high school graduation. He didn't get to see them and he wont get to see the ones to come, my college graduation, my wedding, my kids being born. I hate the father daughter dances at weddings, the giving away of the bride, the walking her down the aisle. I don't even know if I'll want a wedding because the concept of the father's role in the daughter's life is so woven into the entire ceremony. Father's day is coming up and it makes me miserable. Some days when I see a young girl holding her father's hand its all I can bear to not break down. Then other days I see it and I'm so happy for that child. She doesn't have to be sad, she doesn't have to experience that kind of loss. I'm glad for her and I hope that her life doesn't have that kind of loss.