A few years back, I had a home and a couple of acres in a small town in southern NH. It was perhaps one of my greatest learning and growth experiences.
It started off for me with all sorts of dreams and promise, combined with precious little skill. My thought at the time was ‘how hard could this be’? It wasn’t long before I had my answer and started thinking that perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew. I had, after all, only arrived in town with a divorce decree, an elderly dog, an opinionated cat, a great big smile and a hope for the best.
What I’d really wanted, and had intended to have, dammit, was a Norman Rockwell-ian life for all of us. Me, cat, dog. Someone to love us as a package. My intentions were good, they were. And God knows I tried. I did. So, so hard. I wanted that fantasy in absolutely the worst way. Part of me still does. Only with more stability.
Right in that moment, however, I had a shabby little broken-down house on an overgrown 2-plus acre lot..in the middle of winter. I’d discovered that the place needed more work than I thought, and I had just then discovered that I was absolutely terrified of my snowblower, as I discovered it had whirring blades. Why I didn’t notice this before..no clue. Probably too busy listening to the boyfriend I had at the time expound upon the virtues of the beastly thing, while I envisioned cutting through huge drifts of snow like a hot knife through butter. That pesky fantasy thing again.
Fortunately, it is not illegal to be afraid of snowblowers, but I will tell you that it is damned inconvenient in the middle of winter in New Hampshire, and I can tell you that it’s really embarrassing to be afraid of lawn equipment when one is dating a contractor who, so far as I knew at the time, was afraid of absolutely nothing. I wanted him to be proud of me, and there I was, defeated by fear and a mechanical device. Let’s just fast forward through the nasty self-talk and say it was a moment being an asshat to myself.
So the first thing I did, once I was back in the house, was burst into tears. Big huge sobs of terror, embarrassment (because I felt I ‘shouldn’t’ be afraid of lawn equipment, but it turns out that I most assuredly am) overwhelm and not knowing where to start to ‘fix’ it all.
Once I got done crying, I got up to take a shower, thinking I would shower, get myself warm and reasonably together, wait for the snowplow to come through and then shovel and salt. That’s how I got through my shower, truly grateful that it was *hot*.
When I was in the shower, I heard a large rumbling noise outside. Figuring that it was the snowplow plowing out the cul-de-sac, I wasn’t at all worried, and finished showering and re-dressing and all of that, rather proud of myself for what I saw as some nice planning, and the wonderful co-operation on the part of the Universe.
Only to get the shock of my life when I went to drink more tea before going out to shovel. The snowplow had plowed me in!! To this day I do not understand why it happened. The house had been around for many years, and my (red!) truck was in the driveway. So all I saw was my truck and this huge mountain of snow towering over the truck.
My first thought was unprintable. So was my second. No, really. They were unprintable. Followed promptly by a sense of panicpanicpanic. How was I going to get *out*? Even the snowblower wasn’t going to handle that mess, never mind a shovel.
Fortunately, I had thought ahead and asked the people who sold me the house, to leave me a list of local emergency numbers, for police, fire, town hall, pizza..all the important things. Bless them, they not only left me the numbers I needed, they’d left the community guide posted on the fridge!
So I grabbed my cell phone and called Town Hall. I spoke to the clerk and politely explained my plight. Bless her for not laughing. I then got passed around until I got to the person who could actually *do* something about the problem. But first, I had to get given the standard 20 Questions routine, and I rather politely stood my ground, until it was realized that, yes, I was right and they were wrong. Twenty minutes later, I was plowed out, and off to work I went on the driveway with my shovel and my salt.
Several hours later, my boyfriend at the time, came over after he got out of work, to check on me and ask if the snowblower worked all right, only to see a poorly shovelled and salted driveway, and me in my pajamas and slippers with my hands wrapped around a stiff drink. He wanted to know what had happened. He laughed like hell when I told him. I… was not quite amused yet.
He went out to run the snowblower. and always ran the snowblower for me after that. I was grateful.
Lessons to this story: 1. Find out what your fears are before you go diving off into the unknown. 2. Accurately assess your skill set for living in a new environment before you do it. 3. Don’t ‘should’ on yourself. 4. Be grateful, gracious and polite. It never hurts, and sometimes helps!
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