Catering to My Wanderlust

As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent the Labor Day weekend traveling from the East Coast of Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) to the West Coast (Ft. Myers, Captiva Island). My boyfriend and I did this in part to see our friends and family across FL, but I did it mostly to feed my need to wander.

I am a Cancer. Therefore, I cannot stand to be away from the water. There are other reasons, too. Like I never feel more at home than when I can hear lapping water. The waves are what calms me, and as someone diagnosed (whatever that means) with acute depression caused by an anxiety disorder, the water's calming effect is enough to send me packing back to the shore.
My boyfriend, Kristian, (seen fishing on the left with his best friend John) grew up on the west coast of FL, and I grew up on the east coast. We met in a corporate and concrete version of hell, Orlando, and somehow, thought it best to stay. Now, as we revisit our respective childhood homes, and hang out with decade-old friends, fish off rocks, smoke blunts, laugh, play video games, eat cheap but well, and love on our families, we find that going back might be better than best.
There are places like this in FL. Where you can sit underneath a bridge and watch the water hit rocks. There are places that are privately public. As we hit pipes, I could still hear children laughing and cars passing overhead, but we were yet to be seen. I could have sat under that bridge all night with my lover; let the tide come in and wash our feet.
We are a particular kind of silly. How children are silly. Vulgar, scummy children with wanderlust. Wild babies.
I can't keep myself from hating the florescent lights I am now under as I write. I'd rather be under that bridge, soaking up the day glow, the kind that hurts my eyes in a good way. I squint, but out of frustration due to being displaced at my work (I am asked to move from spot to spot depending on if someone more important than me needs the area, which, by my last count, was everyone.), or confusion about how I am supposed to GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS MESS.
Working a 9-5 job is killing me. I don't mean to be dramatic, but I mean to be dramatic because this is my fucking life. I don't like to be called selfish because a steady 9-5 is not enough to keep me happy, as if simply having my basic needs met by going to a job I don't like should be all I need to say "I love my job!" I don't like to be told I won't find anything else. Those are the things people tell themselves so they can't feel bad or sad about not finding their reason for living. I don't care if I have to wait tables for the rest of my life, mark my words: I will never work a 9-5 again. As soon as I find a way out of this place (this city, this job) without deepening my debt, I will be gone. So gone.
Recently, I talked with my hairdresser about her relentless wanderlust. She is 50-ish, and still fighting the need to wander. She has lived like that: off the grid in an RV, in small towns across America and Canada, and she says she always goes back to being steady and smooth, back to hairdressing and living in a house with cable.

I sincerely believe I need six months, at least, by the ocean. The beach slows everyone and everything down. In a beach town, even one as large as Ft Lauderdale, I have license to go slow, to underachieve. What if my success sits under a bridge that reads "Freedom isn't under any flag"?