A Surprisingly Sane Blog

People think I’m crazy when I tell them this, but I hate sunny days.

Scratch that… *if this were a movie, you’d hear a record-scratching-sound-effect*. It doesn’t sound right.

I hate an excessive amount of sunny days.  There are certainly exceptions.  I like sunny days with a cool breeze and a few scattered clouds.

It’s the hot, dry miserable days we get here in the desert.  The kind where opening your front door feels like a blast from a furnace, and stepping outside sucks all the moisture and your soul from your body.

Sure, this kind of weather isn’t so bad if you don’t live here.  A visit to the desert is kind of nice if you can lounge out by the pool side, then step back into a nicely air-conditioned hotel room.

But living here is a whole different story.  It it, quite simply, hotter than hell here.  Getting into the car is kind of like willingly asking someone to burn you alive.   It must be a good 160 degrees when you get in, no joke.  Pray no bird lays an egg on your windshield or you’ll end up with it fried on the hood of your ride.

The worst part about the relentless heat is that in the dead of summer, it consistently hits 100 degrees and above for months on end.  Nighttime lows feel “cool” when they finally drop down to 89 degrees.  It’s exhausting, and nearly impossible to find the energy to leave the house.  It takes your breath away, makes you dizzy, dehydrates you faster than you can take a gulp of water.

Sleeping in the heat is even worse, especially for an insomniac.  I have woken up drenched head to toe in sweat even without pajamas on more times than I can count in my life.  It just sucks, for lack of a better way to put it.

That’s my rant.  Now I’ll answer the inevitable question.

Why are you bitching about this rather than doing something about it?  Move to Alaska and quit whining, you snot.

Well, it’s just not as simple as picking up and moving.

Both of our families are here.  We own a house.  We both grew up here.  Our friends live here.  We are very involved with numerous activities related to dance here.  James has a great job with a prestigious company.

But the number one reason is because I have always had this guilt hanging over my head.  I have to stay here because my parents live 10 minutes away.

I really shouldn’t feel this way, but I do.  In fact, they both lived pretty far from their parents as soon as they married.  They moved around, spent some time in a few different states, had kids, and managed to not feel the umbilical tug toward mommy and daddy like I do.

I love my parents dearly.  They are great people and have always meant well.  However, they did a really crappy job teaching me independence.

I don’t think they really wanted any of us to grow up.  They made it nearly impossible for me to move out of the house when I desperately longed for a “real” college experience.  I never lived on my own.  I even woke up on my wedding day in my parents’ house.

Was this a good thing?  There were pros and cons.  I was able to save up a nice sum of money.  I always had a roof over my head, food to shove in my face, clothes that weren’t full of holes.  I had everything I needed… some have even considered me spoiled.

However, calling me spoiled was a bit of a misconception.  Because I was under my parents’ roof, they had ultimate control over my whereabouts and choices.  It always boiled down to their way or the highway because I lived in their house.  I tried to move out and got as far as a dorm for one semester in college.  I loved it.  However, I just didn’t have the money to go to school full time and work a full-time job, which was necessary to upkeep my car and pay for a place to live.  But more so than that, I didn’t know how to be independent.  I was never taught.

So I stayed at home all the way until I married James.

We eventually bought a house about 10 minutes from where I grew up.  I love this house, don’t get me wrong.  It’s a great place.  We’ve made it our home.

But the location sucks despite the great neighborhood we’ve settled down in.  It’s in the middle of the desert, and the sunlight feels like it’s piercing my soul and sucking me dry.

I would love to get out of here.  Move somewhere cool with clouds overhead the majority of the time.  A place where I can grow flowers and have grass for my kids to play on.  Without the guilt factor hanging over my head.

*sigh*

Sunlight depresses me a little.  Odd, huh?

Or maybe I just feel thoughtful.

Current Mood: Confused

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Daily Ramble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.