Oklahoma: Day One

You know that weird feeling you get the first night when you're in a different place when you wake up and you have no idea where you are or how to step out of the bed? Your eyes dart around the room for the first few seconds f half consciousness searching for all of the things you're so used to being near you on your first few seconds of consciousness: Closet door to the left next to bedroom door, huge bay window straight out front, comforting wall directly to your right that gets it's fair share of cuddling... But of course, none of it is there. In a moment of panic, you wildly smack your hands around searching for your glasses, searching for something that will help you give a name to this foreign place in front of you. After the initial haze of morning passes, you finally realize: This Is Not Where I Wake Up. This is Oklahoma.
The darkness of the room was the main thing that put so much confusion into my head. It was ten o'clock and my bedroom was pitch black. No, this is not like Alaska and they DO have regular daylight hours; my cousin has blinds, as well as thick black curtains, that void all potential light and indicators of life in "The Outside World". Opening these blinds proved to be a tedious, as well as blinding, task that I quickly abandoned. Light switches are far easier than undoing what an anti social Air Force man has spent years concealing. I threw on a few simple clothes and ventured into the house to experience my first Mid-Western morning.
The whole night before, I had had horrible dreams about the never ending bus ride that had brought me there, waking multiple time with violent joint pain that I still that morning had not overcome. My first order of business was to step outside and greet the world with sun salutations. After moving from sun salutations to legitimate yoga poses, I found that I would need to let my joints naturally unwind themselves as I couldn't even execute "high plank" (like a push up) without crying out in agony. I did a few more simple stretches and then allowed myself to lay out in the back yard for a bit for some all natural sun healing.
At around noon or so, my aunt woke up and we spent some quality around the house time together before embarking on the longest grocery shopping trip I have ever been on. The house was completely empty of food and other groceries, so we knew it would take us a good amount of time. Since I am new to the area and need my practice, I drove us to Oklahoma's equivalent to Publix: Homeland. I never would have realized that it was a grocery store if she hadn't told me honestly, as from the outside, especially with the title, you would assume that it is a home improvement store. This proved to be the most interesting part of the day as Oklahoma doesn't carry half of the things we do in Florida, so I had absolutely no idea what was a good brand and what was a knock-off brand. I don't think I've ever said, "I don't get it..." that many times in ANY store in my life. Produce, at least most of it, is a lot more expensive, their avocados were literally DUSTY, as were a lot of the more unique products. I'm pretty sure the thing that blew my mind the most was the IMPORTED orange juice. It was about six-seven dollars a carton if you weren't getting concentrated juice. I always thought that orange juice was pointlessly expensive IN Florida, but these people are being straight up ROBBED.
They've never had the pleasure of picking an orange straight off of the tree and eating it in the field. They've never even had the chance to take the beach for granted like everyone in Florida does. In this one day that I've been here, I already want to beat the crap out of my past self for not appreciating everything that I thought would always just BE there, because for most people? It's never even been there. They've never even considered it an option for it to just be there.
In the check out lane, I saw that the news paper here is called 'The Oklahoman'. I turned to the cashier and said, "So that's what you're called if you're from Oklahoma? Oklahoman? I'm sorry, I just moved here from Florida.. yesterday..." She looked at me like nobody had ever asked her that question before, and aptly answered, "I.. I have no idea. I've never even thought about it. I guess so, if that's what the news paper says, haha!". I told her that their orange juice is overpriced, smiled, and walked out.