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2013-10-22, 8:52 p.m.

At this time last year, I was at the beginning of what turned out to be a very long 5 weeks of snow removal. I was a sleep deprived shell like version of myself for this entire period of time.
One year ago from tomorrow I had my phone interview with the HR lady from SNC. I was so tired, and little did I know-that day was about to get much much more difficult. I don't even remember if I really wanted the job at that point, although I can't imagine that I wanted to continue shovelling snow. I was at a small condo, trying to shovel out a giant patio that with a temp, the pavement was slippery and I couldn't get enough traction to actually push my shovel. And the worst of that day was yet to come. The guy who was with me who knew how to operate the Gravely left... leaving me to teach myself how to use it. I was exhausted, my body was just drained, and it kept falling off the sidewalk, I didn't have the energy to operate it, and I didn't have the skill to let it maneuver itself a bit, I'm fairly certain I bumped a car. I know that I called Darren in tears "I can't do it" I know I sat down on somebodies side walk and texted Pen... And somehow I still went on a month after that.
That was a tough fall, it was a long fall, without thinking about it, I have often said that i did 1/2 a winter of snow removal, not just slightly over 1 month. It felt like forever. Getting a few hours of sleep a night, setting an alarm for 2:45 am and then putting your body through hell for 10-14 more hours really doesn't make anything feel quite normal. I remember falling asleep in the truck, while trying to chew pizza.

So here I am almost 11 months into my office job, and somehow still keep finding myself wishing that I was still landscaping, inspite of the snow removal, and crying when my alarm clock went off in morning, literally falling asleep while walking. I can't even afford to work my old job anymore, now that I have a mortgage, student loans that cost me more than my mortgage, a car loan, bills, the urge to travel, the need to have a baby asap.

Everything that I posted on my music blog at this time last year reminds me of everything, and i still remember why I posted each song.
On Oct 19 I posted The Scientist by Coldplay for this line "Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard" Everything felt hard. Everything WAS hard...
On Oct 20 I posted Swallowed by Bush for the line "warm sun feed me up
i'm leery loaded up
loathing for a change" mostly just because it said "warm sun" i was cold. So cold. Doing snow removal is never really comfortable, you are always either cold and damp, or sweaty and damp.
On Oct 23. I posted Madness by Muse. It was a song I was very obsessed with last year, I remember that night I had my laptop sitting on my bed, just playing over and over again.

I think to some degree I wanted to do snow removal to prove that I could. I don't think it's necessarily what I want to be doing now, but I know that my office job is not where I want to be. It's scary just not knowing where to go. And I am so so fucking tired of people asking me "have you thought about subbing?" when we talk about my not getting a job as a teacher. 3 times in 5 days this week.

life - death