Author: annemarieathey
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Day Twenty
My heart has been heavy lately, as the days breeze by and the one-year anniversary of my Nana’s passing approaches. This time last year was such an emotional roller coaster for me; Dad’s liver transplant granting him an extension on life and Nana fading into the end of hers, as Parkinson’s took her away. I…
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Day Nineteen
That feeling of wanting to belong has been present ever since I got to Christchurch back in October. It makes sense; new job, new coworkers, new home, new friends, new everything. In some ways, many ways, when I got sober almost six years ago, I had to learn how to live all over again. And…
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Day Eighteen
I made it seven months and eleven days down here before I caved and put on an adult onesie. Hell hath indeed frozen over. And I guess that’s where the party is. To top it off, it was a Pokemon onesie. I have never watched Pokemon, but I have watched heaps of adult children down…
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Day Seventeen
The first thing I thought when I woke up today was, ew, you’ve got to take down yesterday’s entry. Being Saturday, I had to make a move and get to my coffee shift, so I left the thought hanging out in bed as I bundled up to head to Southern (the coffee house). Coffee is…
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Day Sixteen
I spend a fair amount of time in my head down here. Maybe I do up there, too. I’m usually overanalyzing or overthinking something and it’s usually something about myself that the antagonist has brought to my attention. It can get pretty uncomfortable. Self-awareness cuts both ways. It is nice to have the awareness, but…
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Day Fifteen
I’m convinced that the storm sucked the energy out of me. I never doubted that the weather affects us as humans, but if ever there was subconscious doubt, it’s gone. The storm is gone, too, and my energy is back, relatively speaking. Hello and Goodbye -98F. It was 0 Fahrenheit today and it felt like…
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Day Fourteen
We had a gnarly storm yesterday, the wind chill took us to -98F. Crazy. I only experienced it as I ran across to the gerbil gym and back. Down here, it’s the wind that gets you. It is unlike any other wind I’ve ever experienced. All I have to do is run between buildings periodically…
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Day Thirteen
Today is day two of struggling to get out of bed in the morning. I know it wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about the struggle, but then there was a stretch, be it short, of not mentioning it, which means I was doing okay. And now I am not. Despite the struggle, I…
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Day Twelve
Despite the rinse and repeat nature of the days down here, there is always something to keep it interesting. Yesterday was Sunday, which means brunch, which in turn means a thirty-minute earlier start to my work day. A handful of us were invited to have coffee with our station manager in the morning. For most…
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Day Eleven
So, about last night…After the walk back from Hut Point, I got warm and cozy in bed and two minutes later my pager went off with an aurora alert. The pages come from our firehouse and it read, strong auroras in the direction of AH. There are two alert lists you can be on, one…
The Whole Wide World 