“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” -Emily Dickinson

This is my eighteenth time visiting Florida.

Every winter break has been spent in eighty degree weather, in palm trees coiled with decorative lights and hours soaking in chlorine. Every winter break, I eat at the same restaurants, say hello to the same waiters, smile as they stare in wonderment at how tall I’ve grown, how old I look, how mature. We drive the same busy streets and make the same comments about how shitty Florida traffic is. We walk down Ocean Boulevard again, dip a toe in the pool again, have an ice cream cone and a sample of fudge at Kilwin’s again.

Every year is more or less the same. Only in the last few has the monotony of these vacations struck me so poignantly.

When I was very young, Fort Lauderdale was my favorite place to visit. It was where my grandma was, where there was sun and sand and pools in which to pass hours splashing about. Now it is far away from my friends, overcrowded and touristy, boring and slow-moving.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on how perceptions can change. A lot about the importance of novelty and the purpose of nostalgia.

There is a time and place for familiarity. Its comfort is reliable, its predictability soothing. When you’ve been somewhere a thousand times, knowing the roads and the restaurants and the locals as if you were one yourself, there’s a warmth. A sense of community, compassion, understanding.

But perhaps such familiarity does not leave room for the necessary pain of nostalgia. Experiences are not meant to be repeated like a broken record, rewound time and time again to delight in the same joys with every passing year. Experiences are meant to be novel, to be exciting and uncertain and unlike any before. You should try a different flavor of ice cream each chance you get, walk a new path and run the risk of getting lost. Constantly returning to familiarity only facilitates a fear of the unknown. Why are we so afraid of being disappointed by a different ice cream flavor or getting hopelessly lost on a new trail? What if that disappointment could turn out to be pleasant surprise?

So on my eighteenth year, visiting Florida for the eighteenth time, I will not be content to stay placidly in my lane. It could very well be my last winter trip here thanks to the international journey I’ll be on in a year from now, so I intend to pursue novelty during my final week. There is a place for nostalgia too, thinking back on the happiness and contentment these family vacations brought me when I was younger. But I’m looking ahead now upon a future that is exciting and unpredictable, so I cannot be bothered to settle into the same-old same-old. Not now, not when there is so much yet to experience.

Not to mention so many ice cream flavors yet to taste.