Hell on Earth

OK, so in the traditional fables, hell is always fire and brimstone. I beg to differ. I am now convinced that hell is 35 inches of snow in less than two weeks.

I have issues with being trapped. I have issues with not being able to leave an establishment for four days. I have a history that I'd rather not talk about, and this past week was a little too close to that scenario. Consequently, I've been having anxiety attacks for about a week.

I think it may have been my aunt on my Facebook who suggested I take Claire out in the snow. Ha, she lives in Johnstown. In a house. With a yard. I live in Owings Mills. In an apartment. With parking lots. Not exactly your cute little family scene, eh? I know everyone is working as hard as they can, but my apartment complex is inexcusable. People are "marking" their parking spots with chairs and other things once they dig themselves out. That's fine, except there IS no assigned parking, I have ALSO dug myself out, and when I come home from work tonight at 6:30 and there is nowhere to park, what would one suggest I do with my car and my two-year-old? The drifts are so high and only one car width of driving space is open, so people are coming around curves and pulling out of places on to the street and hitting other people. It's terrifying. I was terrified driving to the train station this morning, but if I had to sit in that apartment one more day I would have seriously had a nervous breakdown.

This should give you an idea. I told Claire she was going to "school" this morning (what we call daycare). She gave me NO problems getting dressed, RAN into the building, and was smiling from ear to ear. This is so my child...neither of us deals well when we get out of our routine. Neither of us deals well with being trapped.

So after an extremely challenging commute to work...car to train station..train not running above ground so had to take shuttle bus to Mondawin station and then train to Charles Center, end result getting to work at 10:30 am...I am now here and trying to catch up on three days of work. But I tell you...it feels SO good. It feels like my brain is doing calisthenics (at least my brain exercises!) I'm pretty bummed that we're going into a three-day weekend to be honest. I'm going to try to drive up to my brother's house in Carlisle, PA so we have some company.

It's going to take so long for life to return to any semblance of normalcy, and quite frankly I dread it. I still have until April to move from my current place, so I will have to deal with this parking lot situation until it can get cleared up. It's just very stressful to be the one driving, shoveling out, doing the chores, paying the bills, taking care of the household, and trying to navigate my way around this fiasco. I think it's a lot for one person, and I think the blizzard on the ground is only equaled by the one in my little world.

"It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!" ~Mark Twain