Preaching to the Converted: Rediscovering Orlando

Preaching to the Converted: Rediscovering Orlando

Five months ago, I returned to Orlando after moving from here three years ago to the greater New York City area.

Being back home is messing with my mind a bit, if I'm being entirely honest. Mostly because I am back in the only place I've ever called â┚¬Ëœhome.' That is, until I went to New York, and called that place home for three years. But the work gods interceded (much to my great fortune) and suddenly my new great New York area job turned into a chance to have the company move me home to work out of a growing operation in Lake Mary. 

The familiarity takes on a bit of a fun house mirror effect. To add to the Groundhog Day feeling, I moved back into my house (which, thankfully, I kept) and am working in the same office park, in fact in a building separated by an access road from the building I left three years ago. Remember the season of Dallas where it turns out Bobby dreamt the entire thing? Yeah, it feels like that a lot.

So how does my hometown seem to me after a three-year break? Let's take a look:

10. You can actually see the downturn of the economy in Orlando in the visuals around the city. Shuttered businesses and homeless people are just a part of daily life on an island that morphs like an amoeba, 24 hours a day. But in all my previous trips home, the pace of development in Orlando never seemed to cease. This time, when I returned in October, it was as though someone had taken a Polaroid of the entire city from a year ago. Nothing has changed in a year.

9. It seems there are a disproportionate number of truly, morbidly obese people in Orlando, more than anywhere else I've ever been. My first weekend home I went to my local east 50 Home Depot. It looked like a casting call for the next season of the Biggest Loser. Statistics don't lie: despite the warm weather, Southerners are the fattest citizens of the fattest country on the planet.

8. Uh, what's up with the weather? No hurricanes, and frigid winters!? In the three years before I left Orlando, I didn't wear as much as a sweatshirt three times. 

7. Local news is so much better here. I know it seems counter-intuitive that the local news in New York wouldn't be lifted by being the media capital of the world. But local news programs in New York are corny, badly produced and openly tabloid-ish. The same is true with newspapers like the Post or the Daily News, but at least they're balanced with the Times as an alternative. 

6. Goodbye Orlando Sentinel. While on the media tip, I was sad to see that the local Auto Saver has more pages than a weekday Orlando Sentinel. Not to mention a clear absence of local reporting and dependence on wire reports. Given the current climate for traditional media, not unexpected, just sad.

5. Yeah, still a lot of Republicans up in here. I work for a venerated old financial services company so I was surrounded occupationally by Republicans, even in NNJ/NYC. But in my personal life I doubt I could rub two of them together (excluding family). In a weird way, the opposing viewpoint all aroundâ┚¬â€and all the Palin 2012 stickersâ┚¬â€somehow seem more â┚¬ËœAmerican: Arguing politics in NYC is usually preaching to the converted, if you'll forgive the self-promotion.

4. Having a boyfriend who lives in New York and visits regularly, I find myself striving to show this dyed-in-the-wool city boy the essential components of my beautiful hometown.  I've been perhaps too aggressive in really wanting to show him that Orlando isn't simply a satellite to the attractions. Truth is, it isn't hard to do. There is amazing haute cuisine, beautiful local culture, yes, the attractions, and the weather? Well that deserves its own number.

3. Okay the weather. If there is one thing, and only one thing, I can say I truly hated about living in the Northeast, it's the winters. And I don't necessarily mean the cold, or even the snow that turns into the most unappetizing Slurpee of all time. For me, it's the light. It just seems like all 16 million of us are huddled around a single fluorescent light bulb in an underground laboratory for four months. There is something truly luxurious about a February day where you have to put on sunscreen. By February of every year I lived in New York, I found myself asking â┚¬Å”Yeah, it's the greatest city in the world, but the Dutch couldn't have settled in Charlotte?â┚¬Â

2. I've missed getting dirty. Just so you know, three years of renters living in your house will typically result in three years of abject neglect. My yardâ┚¬â€front and backâ┚¬â€have required major clean-ups and that's even before planting season. I've chopped down trees and pulled up stumps. I've planted herbs. I've cleaned dead rats out of my shed. I've bought tools. (Ah, tools.) My nails were always cleaner in New York, but I've missed getting a good muddy sweat on while working in the sun on my very own property. 

1. I still love it here. And it's still the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

More in Viewpoint

See More