I’ve tried to let go of Florida for a very long time, but it seems to have seized hold of me and hung on for dear life.

I kick and scream and fight it. But the fact is that I’ve built a great life in Tampa and have a wonderful group of girlfriends to prove it. Women who stand behind me and who prop me up no matter what.

The kind of women who give you a coffee mug emblazoned with the title, Diva. Or the perfect pair of earrings from North Carolina. Or who introduce you to Curly Girl Designs. Or loan you their nun costume for Halloween.

Now that we’re really moving, it’s hit me that I must leave these women behind. Say goodbye. See them far less often. And I’ll be missing a lot:

Long talks at Starbucks. Mass and hand sanitizer on Sunday mornings. Weekend coffee on the porch with our dogs. Laughing over breakfast at The Brunchery. Plotting over lunch at Mitchell’s. Shopping for candles and lotions at the mall.

It hurts my heart to think about leaving the group M. calls my “posse.” Yes, we’ll get together on either coast or elsewhere. We’ll have a guest room in California. There’s a red rocks spa vacation in the works for this winter.

But it’s not the same as saying “Want to have coffee Saturday morning?” or “Can your son move that rug for me?” or “Let’s drive to North Carolina with the dogs.”

I have a wonderful, deep friendship of 25+ years with a California girlfriend and her daughter, and I will love being closer to them. But over the years my network of California girlfriends has been decimated by work relocations and inevitable life changes.

And yet, I began to sow the seeds of new California friendships a while back. A sweet, dog-loving girlfriend that a Florida friend introduced me to at a gathering a few years ago. A Facebook friend I met through a client.

And there are my two great guy friends who live outside the South Bay but still near enough to occasionally get together. And the woman who would’ve been my mother-in-law, whom I love dearly.

I’ll be going to a writers’ conference in San Francisco in February and will probably meet other people.

Starting over: I’ve done it before. Repotted myself in a new place. Again. And again.

I may not root in one spot, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t root at all. My roots crawl out expansively and take hold in soils holding friends across the globe. They dig in loosely, but they’re still there, and they still give me sustenance.

Colorado.
Italy.
Portland.
Tennessee
and places around and between

I know why I left California in 1996, but I don’t know what exactly pulls me back there so strongly. It’s too intangible, too ethereal to grab hold of.

The mountains. The ocean. The clear, sunny, dry days. The cool nights.
All part of it.

But there’s something else. Something deeper. Some stronger cord that binds me.

A way of thinking. The openness. Its politics. The history. Culture. And how much I know I fit there.

I don’t know that I can pin it down.

But it’s strong enough to pull me away from what I have here. Which is considerable.

So to all the girls I know and love in Tampa: thank you. These yellow roses (for friendship) are for you. All of you.

And don’t be a stranger next year.

Or the year after.

I love you.