We’re leaving early in the morning tomorrow. Before we do, I want to reminisce a little. Humor me.
I love this place. I’ve come here every summer since I was born. It’s not that I love the beach; I like it, but as I’ve told you, I sit, tan and read all day. (I enjoy the water, but I can’t help looking over my shoulder every few seconds to see if there’s a shark nearby.) But I love the people and the memories I associate with this place. I’ve played so many games of Kick the Can and Hide and Go Seek around these condos; in recent years, I’ve played Team Charades and Catchphrase. (It’s possible that I love this place so much because I associate it with games.)
In high school, Kenzie, my cousin Victoria and I each brought a friend. I brought Emily, Kenzie brought Gabrielle, and Victoria brought Anna. This group of six established many Destin traditions. Among them, the infamous Destin Journals.
The first time I brought Emily on the trip we were 13. We went to Wal-Mart with my mom on the first night here, to check out the airbrush T-shirts and begin our thoughtful consideration of which design is the coolest. While we were shopping around, Emily suggested buying notebooks and documenting the trip. We all stared at notebooks for a while, and I tried in vain to make everyone buy the same exact kind of notebook.
Every night of the trip, for the next few years, the six of us would sit on the balcony of my family’s condo or Victoria’s, eating grapes or pistachios or that year’s snack of choice. We’d talk more than we actually journaled, and by the end of the week, no one except Sam felt like journaling. For years, I forced everyone to continue, rounding the group up every night and forcing them to sit in a circle and write. For some reason they began to call me the Journal Nazi.
Even two years ago, I brought Rachel and John, and at 20 years old, we all kept a journal of the trip. Rachel titled mine “The Diary of Sam Frank,” which she later changed to “The Diary of Sam Stank.”
Another Destin tradition established by the six was sleeping on the porch. We decided we wanted to sleep outside, so we dragged all of the patio furniture inside and put a mattress out there instead. We also would set our alarms for 5 a.m., as we did every night, to sleepily peer out at the ocean and look for sharks. (This was another tradition I enforced.)
Some of the traditions have died. (The first to go was the 5 a.m. Shark Watch.) But as you can see, I’m still journaling.
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