Florida, A Lonely Place

It's a lonely place with non-descript people searching for meaning, searching for something that gives them the esteem they begged for in their lives. Even the TV commercials talked of buying bigger, better, and being the envy of 'friends.'

Gated communities try to keep out the rif-raf but the gates need to be stronger, and the walls need to be higher. Anyone, you know, 'those people,' they could get through, and when they did, well, they fit in as easily as anyone else who knew the key code.

Miles of strip mall shopping stretching from town to town, screaming out with gaudy signs along the way, restaurants, and coffee shops proclaiming their connection to the places the owners came from to have a 'better life.' Still, all they did was re-create their life with the same people they knew from where they came because all the same people came too. When together, they talked about how much better their lives were because they had so much shopping and so many restaurants and how their house was bigger and better, and in their private thoughts, they were the envy of 'friends.'

I see homeless seniors, and I'm sad for them, not knowing why or how they became homeless. I see middle-aged men and women burnt brown, aged beyond their years looking like they fell from a box of raisins. I look around for the little ones; I see the parks but not the children. Maybe they are hidden in gated communities where they have a bigger, better life.

I look around, and I feel cold. I feel lonely,