This is slowly becoming one of my life's sad truths: I'm living in the wrong place. At least for one season out of the year.

I guess I've never really liked the cold, but when I was younger, I at least vaguely enjoyed the snow. It was cute and it was fun. I could throw on my puffy one-piece snowsuit and jump around in it, make snow angels, build snowmen, have snowball fights and resort to general foolishness and have an excuse. It got me out of going to school, and having to do pretty much anything at all.

As a teen, I could ski in it. Granted, by that time my body had begun its super-adverse reaction to the cold and I began investing in multiple pairs of gloves, mittens and hand warmers to keep my fingers from freezing. But the snow was still an excuse to have fun.

All that's changed now. Whatever nostalgia and fond feelings I reserved for snow days are gone, and I am to snow what the Grinch is to Christmas, except I haven't stolen it and kept it from the world, though I would if I knew how.

The skiing trips have pretty much ceased. I finally just stopped fighting my own feelings and realized I don't like sports that involved cold or snow all that much. No thanks, I'll sit in the lodge and drink cocoa, or better yet, I'll go bowling. Even when my friends ask me to go "just for one night," I'm all too happy to find out I can't because of some scheduling conflict. And lately, snowstorms are when I really begin to seriously think about moving south. I've wanted to live in Atlanta or D.C. since high school, but this dream of moving always seems like something that may or may not happen if I ever get around to it. That is until a blanket of white begins falling from the sky, and I believe that living in one of these two places is my destiny.

Maybe it's a sign of adulthood that snowstorms just aren't cool and fun anymore. I don't have a two-piece snowsuit and I don't make snow angels or snowmen. The last time I threw a snowball I aimed for a tree about 15 feet away and missed. Now I'm actually a grownup with things to do, such as work and drive, and snowstorms tend to get in the way of those things.

During the megastorm last month I sat in traffic for eight hours trying to get from Norwood to Lowell for a concert I had to review. My car battery almost died in the process from idling so long. I got stuck in about five snow banks during that trip. If there is a god in charge of the weather, I cursed him and suggested he find a new line of work.

And yet, I can still appreciate the upside of my white nemesis. After the most recent snowstorm, I rode down the streets of Lowell and for a moment pondered the beauty of the snow, sitting on the ledges of all the old homes, framing the bare branches in the woods. It was like some perfect New England postcard. Which I would prefer to see, on a postcard.

LAUREN CARTER, a frequent Sun Chronicle contributor, can be reached at lauren-carter@hotmail.com.