A love letter to Arizona.

We've kind of gotten off to a rocky start. I was sick with pregnancy. You were hot. I missed my friends so so much, I missed my kids having friends. You were lonely place. I missed knowing where every cool store was. You were hot. I missed Becky. You were dusty. I missed my weekly tennis games. I missed our wonderful babysitter who came every Saturday night and loved us so well and we loved her. You had scorpions. I missed going to yoga everyday with an amazing instructor. You weren't Texas.

But. You do have mountains. And I love mountains. So much. I've missed being near them more than I realized.

If you look closely at this picture you'll see Owen and Luke way up there.

View from my patio. The desert can be beautiful if you look for it. I can feel myself almost softening. Opening up to the possibility of Arizona. The possibility that I could actually grow to love it here. It's hard to say that. Silly though, but it almost feels like I'm cheating on my love for Texas.

I've realized over these past months that while I loved many many things about Texas what I loved most were the people and connections I had there. My people as Lily says. But, while I miss those people everyday, there are people here too. . .


Making good friends is a process that takes time. There are no shortcuts to getting to know somebody. Seeing if you connect and understand each other. Developing a sort of shorthand communication. Laughing and getting each other. It just takes time.

No way around it, the process of blooming where you're planted can sometimes, be a painful, lonely time. For me, it's been compounded by a time in my life when I've felt I could have really used my friends shoulders to lean on. To be strong for me when I can no longer bear what I am called to bear. I'm better now, but still writing this down tears well up, unbidden to my eyes. It has been hard. But mostly, it's just been lonely.


I've always been a social creature. I'm so used to seeing my girlfriends everyday. Doing fun stuff with them every week. Going to parties, get-togethers, waving at them while riding by on my bike, shopping trips together, impromptu lunch, meeting up at the park, taking walks with them, putting on our workout clothes to go and hit it hard only to wind up sitting down for an hour on the grass chatting.

Mick Jagger's song comes to mind, You can't always get what you want, but, sometimes, you get what you need.


I know one day I will have this again. These connections with people. That I'll drive around in my car (now a mini-van, no wonder I'm having an identity crisis) and I'll have someone to wave to as I drive by. Eventually. And! I'll still have all those people in Texas.


While I will always have passionate love for Texas (Texans if you didn't already know are fiercely proud of Texas) I'm developing a love for Arizona. It's almost like the love you have for your children. You love different things about them, their own special qualities that makes them, them. But, you still love all of them, just differently.

For now though, I feel gratitude for the mountains. My doors are always open as the perfectly comfortable, lovely air wafts through my house. I can hear the vague sounds of my children playing in the desert. Running wild, finding creatures, building forts, climbing mountains. . .being children. This, this is the childhood I've envisioned for them, and that, my friends is, as Mick says"sometimes. . .you might just find you get what you need".

Arizona, you're growing on me. . .