My favorite season

I lived in the US for 21 years. 10 in California and 11 in North Carolina. If you met me in high school, I use to always say that I grew up in California, and for a long time it was home to me. Now, if you ask me, I say that I grew up in North Carolina and its home for me. Either way when I think of either they seem like completely different life times. There is a different Madai in each.


California was my home from the ages 4-13. My childhood was lived in California and it was a wild ride. I moved a few times, and went to 5 different elementary schools and 3 different middle schools, only one of the 3 middle schools was in California. I wasn’t a trouble child, not that I remember at least. I loved playing outside and swimming. I remember I would get home from school, do my homework and then I’d go outside. I do a stupid whistle like sound and my friends would come outside and we would play soccer, football, or cops and robbers. At one point one of my friends and I thought we were too cool to play and we would just sit in her dad’s van and listen to music. It was always warm; I don’t remember it ever really being cold there. I lived in Southern California, so cold isn’t something you really experience there.


We left California and moved to North Carolina in December of 2006. (which honestly seems like a lifetime ago) For the first year I hated North Carolina. I hated the cold. I hated my new school. I hated the nature. I sound dramatic, but I was 13, I was very dramatic. My grades went down because I hated the school, and I didn’t really have any friends. Then a year later we moved to the house where I used to live at prior to moving to the Motherland. I was 14 and at first, I hated that house. We didn’t have many neighbors and I swear it was haunted for a while.


Back then if you asked me for my favorite season, I would’ve said Summer, and I would go on about how much I hate snow and rain and how much I missed California because we lived so close to the beach. Now, that’s not really the case. Don’t take me wrong, I love California and some days I still miss it, but I think I miss North Carolina more. When it rains it reminds me of the chilly Fall weather in NC, and then I remember the bonfires we would have, the hay rides, the Renascences Festival, and making Tamales with my mom. I miss actually seeing leaves falling off trees in the fall, and the little bit of snow we’d get in January/February. I miss actually celebrating Halloween and Thanksgiving. I miss going to football games. I miss everything that fall brings to NC.


But most of all I miss seeing trees and nature all around me. For now, my chilly mornings and random rainy days will have to be enough.