I hate summer. Well, to be fair, I hate overheating. Being redheaded, meaning built for long, cold winters and not UV exposure or heat tolerance, combined with having an absurd amount of muscle mass despite being fairly sedentary, encased squishily in a layer of fat, makes for a deadly combination. 

I think it could actually be diagnosable, the way summer affects me. I match the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, only reversed for the summer months, although I do not feel compelled to call a doctor to tell them it is hot outside.

I recently got a smartwatch, and this week has been mercifully monsoonal, which means the temperatures here in high-altitude New Mexico have dropped from near 100 to the low 80s. On my Garmin, I noticed my stress level plummet and my sleep improve. I just woke up from a six-hour nap and feel like I have climbed out of a dreary depression fog after “bed rotting” through a heat wave in early August. 

The heat, the wildfire smoke, the bugs, the relentless sunshine, I hate it. I lock myself away with blackout curtains like a vampire and listen to the humming of two air conditioners, slowly losing my mind for about two and a half months every year. During this time, I usually gain back all the weight I worked to lose over the fall, winter, and spring (why is it so much easier to gain it all back than it is to lose it!?) I also tend to question my entire career setup, convince myself I need to move states or countries (honestly, that one still sounds like a good idea), and spiral into despair about being a homebody with no friends or family, despite my phone buzzing every few hours with messages from friends and family.

Last month, during one of those summer meltdowns, my half brother hosted an impromptu family reunion on the Fourth of July in Portland. I checked flight prices, hotels, and rental cars, then looked up the drive time from Portland to the Oregon Coast, which is about two hours, and decided it would be a good chance to connect with that side of the family and rest my nervous system on the perpetually brisk coast, a former home base of mine.

I lived on the Oregon Coast for about three years, in Lincoln City and then Florence. Both towns were lovely, and I drove the winding coastal highway from the Astoria bridge into Washington all the way to the California border more than once. It is windswept and sparsely populated, although not on Fourth of July weekend as I learned this trip, with green forested mountains tumbling into the choppy blue Pacific. To me, it is paradise.

But living there felt isolating. There are no major airports, which means if you want to leave you have to make the long and winding trek inland, and during fire season the Pacific Northwest can quickly turn from heaven to hell. I think I chose to move from Oregon to the high desert, a safer place than the fuel-heavy forests but still wildfire-adjacent, during a summer mental breakdown a few years ago.

Visiting again was bittersweet. I enjoyed getting to know my half siblings, who grew up separate from me, and their families. I even met a newly discovered half sister from a different mother, an interesting surprise we learned from ancestry.com. But as expected, the pressure to socialize with so much family was draining.

The drive to the coast was easy. Once there, I cursed my timing. The entire population of inland Oregon seems to descend on the coast this time of year. After being honked at for turning right onto a two-way street by a huge truck driving down the middle, and again for not plowing through a herd of pedestrians or t-boning myself by pulling into traffic at a two-way stop in Cannon Beach, I found myself searching whether Oregon has the worst drivers in the nation. According to several metrics, it does!

Still, I enjoyed lungfuls of cold Pacific air and stood for a while in neon-green forests, soaking in the quiet. I left with a longing to live in a place like that again and questioning why I made the move to the high and dry desert.

A friend recently asked if New Mexico felt like home, and the answer is no. The reality is that no place does. I grew up on the Central Coast of California, unaware of how privileged this was, despite being part of the working-class underbelly support system for the hyper elite who live there. As a single person with no family money, I have been priced out of living there again, and I did not love California bureaucracy. I am socially liberal, but I do not like the kind of liberalism that feels like living in an HOA.

The Pacific Northwest still calls to me in a deep and mournful way, but it has also become expensive – a quick check on Craigslist when the mood hits finds only moldy, dark, dank apartments that are twice the price of what I’m paying for 13 foot ceilings, a mountain view, and original 1930s hardwood floors.

The town I am in now has fantastic elder hippies, and the Mexican and Native influences feel comforting and interesting. I prefer New Mexico to our yuppie older brother, Colorado. I remind myself that I am still looking at green mountains, not sitting in a pool of my own sweat from humidity like the entire southern part of the country, and I have some of the most comprehensive human rights a person can have in today’s world. New Mexico suits me politically, but I will always miss the green forests and the sea. Maybe I will end up back there one day. Washington has no income tax and a similar set of state laws, love that for them. And Alaska, oh Alaska, you will never not be on my mind.

This time of year I have little energy to write a “places to visit on the Oregon Coast” type blog. That market is oversaturated in my opinion. The entire coast is lovely. Florence might win for loveliest town, but every few miles there is a gorgeous beach or forest trail. It is an outdoor lover’s paradise. Please go if you have the chance, especially if you like the Twilight-style hoa-hoa-hoa-hoa-hoa atmosphere. For now, it feels too painful to even research. Its like the one that got away.

This blog is more about my personal narrative, my experiences with travel written in a diary-like tone. It is “Going Places With Skye,” not “Skye Tells You Where to Go.” If you would prefer more travel tips, let me know, but so far I have noticed a good response to my bare-your-heart-out style. 

If you are also a summer hater, I stand in solidarity with you. Our time is almost here. The leaves outside my window are already turning yellow. Stay strong. 

Until next we travel, <3 Skye