Everybody loves Florida and says it's the greatest state ever because it is so warm, and you have the beautiful ocean, and everything is so tropical and ideal. But I however, hate Florida with my entire being. Men always run away from their problems, that is a common fact. But the men in my life, run away to Florida as if just being there will fix all their problems. It doesn't. It just hides them for a little while until they come knocking on your door and you realize you can't run away. There are two important male figures in my life. They are so completely different, and don't have the same relationship with me at all, yet they both run to Florida.

One of them is my dad. He has ran away to Florida twice so far in my lifetime, each time it wasn't planned. Or maybe it was planned. Maybe he knew for months, or even years that he was going to leave. But for me it was different, I had no clue he was leaving. One day he just took all his stuff and drove down to Florida, notifying me of this, after he was already gone. This felt like I had just been slapped in the face. All I could think was why did he go and why didn't he tell me? This first time I was 5 or 6 I think, so it didn't have much of an impact on me, but the thought was present in the back of my mind all the time. I was the girl in kindergarten who didn't get to see her dad.

The second time it was the same situation, but I was 9, so I knew exactly what was going on. He was leaving me because he couldn't deal with the responsibility of having a child and being the coward that he is, he left. Nobody will ever experience the kind of abandonment he put me through. I couldn't understand what happened. For most of the time he was gone I thought it was my fault he'd left and I did something wrong. It felt like a huge gash had been made in my chest, that had ripped right into my heart and squeezed it until there was nothing left. He left, and then suddenly, when he decides he wants to be a father he comes back and jumps right into my life like he was never even gone.

He resents me so much because he wants to go back to Florida. He has nothing here. He doesn't own a house, doesn't have a job, and isn't married. His girlfriend is pregnant though so I'm sure they will move down to Florida once the custody battle with me is over. I'm not going though and he knows it so he just has to stick it out until I'm 16, so I can get emancipated and he can flee to Florida once again. But this time I'm not going to be the one hurting. It's more like me leaving him now. Which I'm okay with, I don't need him in my life, I did fine without him in my childhood.

The other prominent man in my life is my current ex- boyfriend, Cj. He drives me crazy, yet I still love him. He goes to Florida every year for a couple months, but this time he said he's not sure if he's coming back. I told him I would miss him a lot if he left and didn't come back. And you know what he said? He said I would get over him, and then laughing that it was my loss. I was so mad when he said that, partly because he didn't care about leaving me behind when he leaves, and the other part was that he said it in a joking manner, like this whole issue isn't even a big deal.

But, really it is a big deal to me because I thought there was something in this relationship, but I guess I thought wrong because there is nothing. Last night was the last time I was going to see him and I ended up missing him by two minutes. But apparently he was with some other girl, which was just the last straw. I told him I didn't want him to talk to me until he gets back from Florida.

I broke off all ties with him last night and it wasn't even a big deal to him. It's doing him a favor really, I mean now he doesn't have to go to Panama City Beach, Florida with any emotional ties. It doesn't matter how I feel about it, it's for the better of both of us, because I don't need someone who is like a mirror image of my dad in my life.

I guess men don't feel love, or any kind of feeling of responsibility, or even common decency. This is very apparent in the two most valued men in my life, and I'm sure is true for every other man out there. I guess the same could go towards women, I mean I'm not sexist, but it just seems men are more prone to leaving.

I don't really hate Florida itself, it is really gorgeous, the beaches with snow white sand, the coconut trees right outside everyone's windows, and the sunsets over the ocean are beautiful too I'm sure. I just hate the fact Florida seems to be the place people flock to when they want to start over with their lives.