Bittersweet and big choices
2012-11-11, 3:22 p.m.

So today I gave my 2 weeks notice at Signature. A job I have had since I was 20. A job I have mostly loved (in recent years anyways)
I ended up getting an office job with Pen's company, they offered me $23.41/hour, so the extra money every month will cover my student loans. Leaving me to live the same lifestyle I live now, and be able to put money away and live comfortably. Even though I just worked 36 hours in 3 days doing back breaking manual labour, it was still a huge huge decision, and it wasn't the snow that made me decide to leave, it really was the money. I don't want to have to pinch every penny for the next 114 months (how long it is going to take to pay off my loans) and feel guilty about my new car.
I cried for almost all of the conversation I had with Doug. But, I also cried for most of the morning today. I think it was just pure and utter exhaustion. This job will make it easier for me to start to move forward, to think about buying a home of our own, to start thinking about having a baby, go on some trips and so on.
Yesterday was day 3 of clean up after another particularly brutal blizzard. I had to pick up my first temp for the drop in centre. A girl approached my truck almost as soon as I rolled in, and asked if she could come with us, I reallly wanted to say no, but didn't know if that was discrimination or if I could get in trouble for saying "uh no, I want a man who can actual help us today" so I took the girl against my better judgement. A very short time later I was informed she was on crack, and coming down hard. Her jaw was moving back and forth, her neck was all bent to the side and she looked like she was falling asleep on her feet. She lasted until around 2. Me and Cristal giggled about her all day, but I felt so bad for the poor girl. She was so young, and so strung out, she had a baby. She was homeless, she moved from the Edmonton drop in centre to the Calgary DI because apparently there are more drugs in Edmonton... She just looked helpless and pathetic. I guess it just really made me think about a lot of stuff, like how lucky I am that I'm not living that life, and how sad it is for a girl in her early 20s to be navigating the parking lot of the DI at 5am on a saturday morning looking for work, not knowing what could end up happening to her. I'd be scared. So she wasn't doing an awesome job, Darren told me to just ride her and get her going. Normally I have no problem getting on workers' cases and getting them going, threatening to fire them etc. but yesterday I just realized that I reeally don't want to be that person righ tnow, I don't want to be the jerk, I don't want all of this responsibility riding on my shoulders. I am so tired and I just don't care enough.

But my snow removal career is close to over... for now. I am tired and sore, I have frost burn on my chin. But I survived. I did 10 days of snow removal in the previous 4 winters combined, and 9 so far this year. We've had an brutal and early start to winter and it hasn't been fun.
I'm interested to see what this next part of my life is going to be like, it's completely new and different for me. And I am not a person who likes new and different. I'm a floater to the greatest extent, I just like things to carry on how they are. I had making decisions and I had change, so it really was a big deal for me to do this... I really want good things to be in store for me, but I can't just wait for them to appear in front of me, I have to start thinking about what will actually help make me happier and go out and find it. And if it's a bit more money that will make my life easier right now, then I guess then that's what I had to do.

life - death