I was born amd raised in the Arizona desert. The sun is relentless: 360 days a year of miserable scorching, drying, hardening, blinding sun.
Just weeks after finishing high school in 1991, on a whim with my (now long since ex-) boyfriend, we moved to Oregon (he had family there). There was no Internet to research it - the only thing I knew about Oregon was from the month of April in a horse calendar I'd had as a little girl (we do all love horses, after all). It was a pretty photograph of a bay running in a green field with trees shadowing the forefront of the image.
I got there in July. It was beautiful. It was GREEN full of life and vivid colors, (although sunny, but that was a norm to me). We lived in the country with his family until we could find work and move out (took a few months but we did). In late August it started raining. It just rained. Nothing dramatic too often, just... rain. Wet. All the time. The air was moist and cool. I was in love (although I could live without the 3 or so weeks of ice and smattering of snow each Winter). The rain stopped sometime in late June the following year. I missed it and the silvery skies that were a balm to my soul.
I lived in that beautiful, rainy Eden for 20 years until the Universe bade me return to Arizona where I remain still dreaming of the steady, encompassing, comforting rain and shimmering clouds, trying to get my memories to blot out the present horrible, incessant sun and the empty blue sky that is everywhere...
It rains in Arizona briefly during the monsoon season at the end of each summer, but these rains don't speak of comfort and life. Rather, just as everything in the desert, the rain is violent. It reviles anything beautiful, delicate, or loving. It lashes out in downpours and hail to flood, drown, and break whatever it can. Arizona rain isn't a balm. It isn't soothing or a comfort bequeathing life to the land. No, it's a torrential downpour which will kill you if it can from which we must flee and hide. It is every bit as sinister as the sun.
In my time in Oregon, I met many people who were depressed due to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). 10 months of rain isn't for everyone, but it is for me. They needed sun. I always recommended Arizona to sear away their ailment. I think I have the same -- but in reverse. The sun is depressive due to being oppressive.
I love the rain.
I've been back in Arizona for just over 6 years now. It feels like a lifetime. When my dad for whom I was caring in Az died 2.5 years ago (the main reason I moved back), I thought I could finally escape the desert and return to my liquid utopia. The desert doesn't forgive, though. It doesn't seem to be done with me, yet.
I'm still looking for work to get back up there where my soul still lives. Need min. 80k a year +health ins. in a permanent position. I'm a fantastic technical program manager, data analyst and project manager with an MS in Info Mgmt & a PMP who admins an SAP system on MS SQL Server platform. I'm not a DBA, but I have skills. I've had interviews, but no go. I get nervous despite practicing. There always seems to be someone who meshes better and I don't make it in all the way. I'm too geeky often times -oddly enough. Too much of a comedienne for my own good. But I like to laugh and play while I work! Or I tone down and then I make no impression, or something, I guess (I've asked for feedback - I'm always told I was fine, but someone else was a better fit).
The right thing will happen when it's supposed to, I just wish it would hurry. .. but not in the Winter. I actually hate snow more than sun and the thought if having to move aka drive through those snowy mountain passes is terrifying. I don't like to travel (that rules out consulting gigs).
But I'm not really desperate. I have a great job I like most of the time with a lot of flexibility and benefits (telecommuting isn't one of them, though, so I can't move away), I have a beautiful little home. I have my love and my life (my husband) beside me. We have our sweet dog, food and air conditioning. Life is good; I'm actually not complaining. I just miss the steady rain, the green everywhere, and being coddled and bouyed by the trees -- I'm just in the very wrong geographical location for my spirit.
I love the rain.
