I really do. While I may not have liked it where I used to live, it was still better than here. Yeah, I have the ocean I can drive to. But you know what? The ocean kinda loses its wonder when you've seen it a million times. When I first came here, I would stare in amazement at it every time we passed by. I would watch the waves, I would have fun splashing in them. But now, I'm used to it. I'm used to the taste of sea salt, the cold water, and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. Don't get me wrong, I still like it, but it's something I don't want to witness often. I'd rather visit it occasionally, so it won't lose its wonder and charm.

But it's not just the ocean. I miss the rains. You'd expect it to rain so much more here on the coast. You'd expect pouring rain. But we hardly get a drizzle until mid-winter. I miss the summer rains of Arizona, the monsoons that would sweep past. I miss the blinding lightning and the booming thunder. I miss the winds rattling the screen on the window and the rain pounding against the roof. I miss that smell that would come with the rain, warning me that it was nearly upon us. I miss running around in the streets in the pouring rain in the middle of the day, the air feeling hot but the rain feeling cool. I don't like to just listen to the rain, or just watch it. I like to let it soak me to the bone. I can't do that here. Here, it only rains in the winter.

Another thing I miss... The heat. Here, it's nearly the same weather. It rarely gets above 80 in the summer, and below 40 in the winter. Where I used to live, in Sierra Vista, it would snow in the winter. (The snow would melt off later in the day, though...) It would reach the 100s in the summer. I miss that. I miss the hot days of summer, and the cold days of winter. Here, it's basically the same temperature every day. We get an occasional heat wave, but it's nothing like the heat of summer in Arizona.

I miss the friends in Arizona, too... I didn't have many, I know that. Hell, I hardly talk to them anymore. But I still miss being able to at least go out and hang out with someone who had a common interest with me. Here, there's no one like that. Everyone sticks to the friends that they met in kindergarten, or they just don't have the same interests. Rhia and I only just recently found someone we can hang out with, after almost a year of me living here and six months of her living here.

[/sighs] I just miss Arizona... I can't wait to move back. Especially after I found out so much more about it. Rhia told me it's not just all desert and barren landscape, that there are forests and beautiful deserts. I've never seen that part of Arizona. Now I'm really wishing I had. (My parents were never really the adventurous type... They always stuck to the same roads and the same cities. They never truly traveled.)