... When he made me a Virginian.
This morning I woke up to an odd memory I had otherwise forgotten. It was of an allergist giving me the results of my prick test 13 years ago. She rattled off the expected allergies- dust, mold, etc. And then added, "And you'll want to avoid the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest since you are off the chart for tumbleweed." I had just finished a year at BYU, and that explained the incessant head cold I had for that entire year. But to be honest, up till that moment, I didn't know tumbleweed was real. I thought it was just something you saw in cartoons. Well, this morning waking up in Albuquerque (in a rat hole of a motel), I am remembering loud, and oh so painfully clear, that tumbleweed in fact is not just in cartoons, and that yes, I am horribly allergic to it.
Which basically wraps up that I was not meant for California (too laid back for my "inside the Beltway personality), clearly not Floridian, however much I loved that state (hair was too frizzy there), never going to fit in in Utah (I'm not made from a cookie cutter), far too Southern for Texas (trust me, Texan and Southern are very different things), and my corn and wheat allergies should keep me far away from the bread basket of America for life. So God must have known what he was doing when he made me a Virginian!
And then there's me, off the charts on mold and trees, living in Seattle. Yes, I need to move, but the job, the job! I love my job and I don't want to leave it.
ReplyDeleteEvery time my lease comes up for renewal, though, I consider moving to Utah or back home or even back to Boston, all places I'm not nearly allergic to. The dry climate of Utah, which doesn't really allow mold to grow unless you do something drastic, makes a heaven on earth for my allergies and asthma. The only thing that doesn't like Utah is my skin, which suffers from stress/allergic-related dermatitis. I often looked like a burn victim when I lived in Utah. But how worth it not to have asthma attacks 2 or 3 times a week! How worth it to have the energy to bike everywhere and to not be sick all the time with sinusitis and sinus infections!