Home is Where You Retreat To?

Since moving to the mainland all anyone has ever asked me is "why?"

Why leave Hawaii?
Why did you more HERE??!!
Why don't you move back?

I was born and raised in Hawaii and I was raised very traditionally. I was in a hula halau, I learned to surf and swim at a young age, I have a tendency to speak pidgin especially while drunk. Hawaii will always be my home. In fact, it's more than my home, it's my heritage.

Even at a young age, I turned the "mainland" into something exotic. Hawaii was not "exotic" to me it was just where I lived everyday. That's not to say it's not beautiful, it is gorgeous and I have never been able to live inland because of my connection to the ocean.

I craved seasons. As a child, I wanted the colorful leaves of the fall racked into a pile so I could play in them. I wanted to see snow and the way it turns a landscape pure and white. I wanted to see flowers bloom and the bright burst of green that came in the spring. I was raised in perpetual summer.


It was always my intention to explore and discover a place other than the tropical shores of my homeland. North Carolina was never comfortable but my experience there I wouldn't trade for anything. But here in Washington, I feel good. The mountains are everywhere you turn and the water is clear and full of life.

The question "Why don't you move back?" always fills me with a little bit of rage. Why should I move back? Because it's your idea of paradise? Maybe this is my idea of paradise. I love Hawaii. It is and will always be my home, I cannot stress that enough. For whatever reason, I fight moving back home I feel like it is a retreat, like my white flag is going up. Like I can't make it with the new and the brave and I have to fall back on comfort and familiarity. While I miss my family horribly and toy with the notion of moving back home to be with them. I am too stubborn to see a move to Hawaii as anything but throwing in the towel.

The traffic, the heat, the overpopulation, the high cost of living, the tourists and the living tourists. These are all factors I use to back up my decision. Sure, I could live on another island, one that more happily reflects people's notion of Hawaii - Maui, the "new" Waikiki or my favorite island Kauai.  But given the lethargic nature of the islands, the spell the islands cast that seeps into your soul through your pores, that hangs in the humidity, I would slack and not see my family nearly as much as I'd like. Also outside of Oahu the islands offer limited jobs, actives and sometimes an even higher cost of living. Call me crazy but $8 for a gallon of milk does not fill me with joy despite how bright the sun is shinning.

Every time I go home, I want to stay. I want to burrow myself deep in the green bosom of the tropical isles that are my home. Something in me is resilient, resisting the urge to cave and retreat home. And I love bringing people home with me. I love playing tour guide and showing people my home. But if i never left the islands I wouldn't have these friends to show the islands to. I am a new strain of Hawaiian one resistant to the homelands of my birth. It's a little saddening but I feel like a Hawaiian on a new frontier, I'm onto something big.