Memoir Monday #35 If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

This is my post for #memoirmonday prompt If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? hosted by @ericvancewalton

I have always said that I would love to live in Costa Rica, I have never been there but I choose it because I think it would stay warm year round, I could be wrong about this but I am willing to gamble on moving there to see if it is so.

My Dad had moved us from Florida to Missouri, which was a shock, the snow and ice were not for me and when locals asked if I wanted to go swimming, they took me to a creek that was no more than knee dip. I was used to swimming in the ocean.

From Missouri I went to California, San Clemente, it was a small town like the one I was from and near the ocean, but nothing like home, Fl.

I lived in North Carolina, my husband said he would take me to the beach. He was from Missouri and I do not think he knew what the beach was supposed to look like because he took me to a swamp with grass so tall you could not get to the water. This was not a place I wanted to swim or live.

I lived in Texas, a town called Irving, I think, it was a lot hotter than Florida and more crowded with people, there was a road called the Grapevine, it seemed like to get anywhere you had to take that road. I did not like it there either.

So if I could live anywhere, I would choose right where I am. I live close to the beach, the river, and town but I am secluded from it all. I have 2 acres of land and you can not see another house from my house. There is a nature preserve on 2 sides of my property, I own the woods between me and the neighbor, and on the other side is a row of thick bamboo that separates us from a small factory that makes crab trap buoys, they have one employee. And I am right across the river from where I grew up.

My husband grew up one road east of where we now live and even though he loves our home, he hates what our town has become, it is more of a tourist trap than a fishing community and family town that it used to be. There are no fish houses left on the river.

Vero Beach has always been the biggest town to our south but now a report came out that we now have 10K more people than Vero. In 2000 there were 16,181 people in Sebastian this year we have 27,419 people living here.

My mother had given me 2 lots in North Florida, they are in the middle of nowhere, it is 30 minutes to the nearest gas station/convenience store and 45 minutes to the closest Walmart. I have no desire to live there because of this and it gets cold up there, my husband wants to live there. I know I should never say never but I hope it will never happen.

photos are mine