112 Degrees

It is so hot outside...so hot that just going out to get my mail at 4:30 in the afternoon makes me feel sick. It's just this overwhelming oven of a temperature. So hot you can feel yourself dehydrate and become drowsy, all within just a few minutes of stepping outside. However hot it gets, though, I much prefer it to anything resembling cold. Snow is a joke, rain throbs, cold damp pierces and chilly overcast depresses. Sunny and warm to raining and hot as hell work quite well for me. Arizona compliments my aches and pains beautifully with it's dry, arid environment. There is actually a lot about Arizona that is working for me right about now. The speed, the sunshine, the on-vacation vibe of sultry, sweaty nights. Retiree's and snow-bunnies flee to whatever pleasant-now but miserable-winter haunt they call home and the rest of us, the strong and brave, come out to play in the summer's desert heat-wave.

Living in San Francisco with Fibromyalgia was simply awful. 55 degrees year round, with cold wet damp penetrating every layer of clothing and stabbing right through the muscle, chilling the bone. I ached and throbbed and creaked with a pain that was unreal the last few years we lived on the Peninsula. But then winter would come and it would get even colder, even worse! I could never get warm and never get out of pain! The hot tub was the only relief I got, Percocet offering a mildly nauseous blanket of dullness to a writhing, growling beast of pain. I did not realize how bad it actually was until we moved here and I discovered the pain of real Fibromyalgia, the normal kind. Not the pain rattled can't walk to the bathroom from my bed in the morning because I feel like I am going to break kind. If what I experience now is to Fibromyalgia then, I liken it to what a broken leg is to being a quadriplegic.

So Arizona is working out for me just fine. A long, hot summer and short, snow-free winter compliment my lifestyle perfectly. Sure, I miss California, the City. The hustle-bustle of accessibility, so many people in close proximity. The moodiness of the weather and inhabitants alike. I am so glad to have done it, but am glad it is done. My husband and I moved there when we were 25. I spent the most formidable years of my life shaping and molding my character amidst the China-town, financial-district, preppy, homeless, punk-rocker and Mission-bound-misfits that filled the streets with amazing sights and sounds. The vast array of ethnic diversity and financial extremes formed a true awareness in each other, of each other, and our innate differences. I gained an appreciation for the delicious individuality of all of God's children as I mingled with other unsatisfied souls searching for that 1 spot on the planet that just feels like home. I will move from this place one day, for I have not yet found my spot either, and thankfully these $300 a month air-conditioning bills will come to an end as well. But whatever adventure comes next, I am really enjoying Arizona right now.

Thanks for joining,
Leah