Dear Minnesota Weather,

I lived with you for almost 19 years, and I’ve put up with you because I don’t really have a choice. You’re like a sibling to me. I love you sometimes, and other times you really make me upset. To be honest, I really really don’t like you 50% of the time.

Summers get too hot. Not only is it 90 degrees but the humidity is like trying to breathe through an abnormally thick blanket. I spend less time enjoying the outdoors and more time with my new best friend AC. At least they’re nice to me.

And then there’s the classic Minnesotan winter. Winter in Minnesota doesn’t last three months like it’s supposed to, it lasts borderline five months. Remember the Halloween blizzard of ‘91 that my parents always bring up? What kind of sick joke is that?

Temperatures drop below -20 degrees and stay there for a solid week, refusing to go up, while you don’t even have to ask it twice to drop. You make the roads super icy, making people forget how to drive and end up in ditches. Every heard of mercy? Mind showing it every once and awhile?

It’s been two days since it snowed for the first time this year and I’m already second guessing my decision to go to college on a hill. Your wind is brutal, making me question whether or not my education is worth venturing out of my warm dorm room to the empty, white tundra of a campus. As much as I love walking into class with my tears frozen to my face and a good ole snot mustache… It gets old. Even after two days.

I’m going to be honest, I hate you.

A lot sometimes.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate you. Those hot summer days go with our 10,000 lakes like peanut butter goes with jelly. They make water balloon fights and slip and slides so much nicer.

There’s nothing like a lovely fall afternoon where all the trees are colorful and I can walk around in leggings and a sweatshirt and watch the sunset around 6:30 PM without being freezing or sweaty. There’s something truly magical about the colors sprouting everywhere once all of that snow melts.

With all that snow brings a lot of fun. It cancels class, and that’s enough of a positive by itself. We can go ice skating and skiing and have snow ball fights, the list goes on and on. Even though it’s cold, there’s something about watching it snow that makes me feel some type of way. When it’s dark out and the street lamps are lit and the snow is falling in little clumps so softly and every snowflake that lands on your mittens is a different shape. It’d be crazy to say that it isn’t beautiful.

I guess you could say that we have a love-hate relationship, but the good definitely outweighs the bad. I wouldn’t want to put up with the weather in any other state. I wouldn’t have it any other way.