summertime lamentations

22 weeks.

I admit it. I am in complete shock at this turn of events. Honestly, I never would have guessed it or seen it coming. I predicted it all wrong and underestimated my strengths and weaknesses. I am utterly disappointed in myself.

I am going to be MISERABLE this summer!!!!

In preparation for my move to North Carolina in January, I dreaded the winter. I worried myself sick and asked everyone how to prepare, what to expect, what I should do, how I could survive the sub-freezing temperatures, the snow and the ice. Hailing from Texas, I thought that I'd be fine in the heat. I've lived in triple-digit summers for 23 years. I know heat. I know humidity.

Insert foot in mouth.

Dear Reader, please allow this lamentation for once--I must whine myself to sleep tonight, for I am dreadfully hot.

I sleep under a bug net where it's now too hot for a sleeping bag. I wear all my clothes to bed because I don't have the privacy to wear anything with less coverage than cargo pants and a t-shirt. I go to sleep sweating and wake up sweating (now, I know for some of you, this sweating thing may not come as a surprise. I've always been man-like in my sweating, but friends, dear friends, you ain't seen nothin' like this before). If I don't keep covered by clothes, I'll instead be covered in mosquito bites. I sweat all day toting around a filing cabinet in my book bag (metaphor stolen from my co-worker, Gary--but now that I think about it, he'll never read this, so let's just say I'm clever enough to have made that up on my own) and a medical satchel. I shower once a day, but usually it's mid-day, so I sweat in the shower and sweat trying to get dressed.

I am in a constant state of sweaty!!

Oh, but it gets worse. It's only June 11. Summer hasn't even begun. The triple-digits mock me as they paw the dirt waiting for release from Seasonal Purgatory.

And the bugs. Oh, the bugs. If it rains, it cools down the temperature, but brings out the bugs. What kind of trade off is that?!? If there really is a moment where I can ask God one thing, I may just ask him why we must sacrifice our bodies to the bugs in order to get a reprieve from the heat. I know we are called to be "living sacrifices" (Romans 12), but really, God? Really? Mosquitoes, Horse Flies, and Yellow Flies? Really?

Heat rashes. Bug bites and stings. Swollen appendages due to bug bites and stings. Living in constant fear of being attacked by campers and bugs.

I am a masochist. It is official. I'm really enjoying the beach and lake time I'm getting when I'm not working. I might actually get a good tan this year for the first time in a long...well...ever. That tan will be hard to see, though, behind the red bumpiness of my arms and legs. My oh my, this may be the longest summer of my life. 3 months might feel more like a decade this time around.