Chicago Winters are rough, even for the local Chicagoan who's lived here for years. It's even tougher for someone, like me, who comes from Southern California, where the sun is constantly there, the wind is a nice breeze or often nonexistent and the temperature never ever drops below 50 degrees. It has been quite the adjustment. People from Chicagoland or from cold winter states or cities unless, they are also from California, have a hard time understanding what we go through physically and mentally.
Take for example, when I landed here. When I left the LAX airport, the temperature high was an average of about 70-75 degrees and a low of about 60 degrees. When I landed 4 hours later at O'Hare Airport, it was about negative 18 degrees Fahrenheit. I couldn't believe it. There were ice on cars and essentially everywhere else outside. Actual icicles hung from the bodies of cars and mind you, I saw snow once for the first time last December before my winter break. The wind was frigid and piercing.
The next few days in Chicago were extremely freezing with subzero temperatures and my body struggled to get used to it. The first week back from beautiful, sunny California and my body couldn't take the Chicago winter. I ended up extremely sick with some type of cold spell that made me feel like I was freezing in my bed wearing five layers including a thick jacket. A days worth of sleep helped me recover, but I imagine other people coming from warmer states may have experienced a similar type of sickness.
This along with the lack of my main source of Vitamin D here has made me homesick more than ever. I miss the warm sun, the sea-salt breeze, emphasis on the salt and the warm temperatures. The temperatures may rise in Chicago (that means in the 30's and 40's in Fahrenheit for all my warm state readers), but without the sun, most of the time, and even if the sun does come out, the sun disappears after a few hours under all the gray clouds. It gets quite saddening very quickly.
But I did ask for this change and I thought I was prepared for it when I chose to come here. California has wonderful weather, but for me, I found no exciting changes or a place for personal growth personally. That's why I'm enduring and doing my best to get through my body's fluctuations, my homesickness and the teasing about being Californian.
I can't speak for all the Californians who move to winter locations in the States or Internationally, for that matter, but don't make fun of the Californians who are new to the realities of the winter season in the cold areas of America, cause they do have it rough. Our bodies exist in an awkward liminal state of hating the cold and wanting to love the cold. We're trying and this is our attempt.
