The sun and I? We’ve been in a long-term, complicated relationship. The kind where one of us shows up hot, bright, and full of promise… and the other ends up with heat rashes on their pinkie.

Yes, my pinkie. Don’t ask me how that’s even possible. It’s as if my body screamed, “This is why we can’t have nice things!”

The sun was playing peekaboo recently—dipping in and out of clouds like a flirty friend who knows they’re the life of the party. And I, ever the willing participant in this dysfunctional dance, ran straight into its warm embrace like it hadn’t betrayed me countless times before.

I love the sun. Love, love, it. I thrive in heat, dream of beaches, and practically purr when my skin soaks up those rays. Give me 90 degrees over 40 any day. I am solar-powered. Vitamin D is my love language. SPF is my perfume.

But my skin? Oh, my skin has other ideas. Heat rashes. Itchy blotches. Mystery red patches that appear like uninvited guests at a brunch I didn’t agree to host. Every time the sun goes full throttle, my body taps out faster than a kid in a hot car with no snacks. It’s like my cells are whispering, “She’s doing it again… prepare the rash brigade.”

And still—I return. Every. Single. Time.

My love of the sun is, frankly, maladaptive. Like wearing stilettos on cobblestones or trying to have just one French fry. You know better, but you do it anyway. It’s hope. It’s denial. It’s peak psychological contradiction.

But maybe maladaptive isn’t always bad. Maybe it’s a sign that we still want wonder, even if we pay for it with aloe gel and regret.

So here’s to the peekaboo sunshine, and to the human ability to love fiercely—even if it sometimes makes us itch in awkward places.

Score one for irrational joy.