Small Victories

This weekend, I went with my parents to Boulder, Colorado to begin looking for apartments for my upcoming move. It was overwhelming to say the least, especially considering this is my second move in a year. Moving to New York where I did not know anyone was really scary and at times disheartening. There were certainly days when I really wanted to see my old friends for drinks, or advice or just to get out of my apartment. I feel really good about the friends I now have in Rochester, and moving to Boulder will be a reset in some ways. But on the other hand, being forced to figure things out on my own has given me a new found appreciation of what I am capable of doing myself.

This had been a pretty mild winter in Rochester, with only one major snowstorm that shut down roads and the Universities (pictures and news stories regarding this storm are available here). As a native Texan, I have never had to dig my car out of a snowdrift prior to this experience. I had a vision of snowplows clearing out the parking lot, and then just being able to back my car into the clear once I had cleaned off the windows. I realize now that this idea is laughable, but I did not know what to expect. On February 16^th, a Tuesday, the University closed because of the weather conditions, which was lucky because I was pretty sick: fever, aches, coughing. Classes were back on for Wednesday, so I would be going to work. The night of the storm after the snow had mainly stopped falling, I remembered that my apartment would tow vehicles that had not been cleared; otherwise, the snowplows would not be able to continue clearing the parking lots. Rather than dealing with this before going to work the next morning, I decided to clear my car off and move it to a snow free parking spot that night. I imagined this would take about twenty minutes.

At 11 p.m., I bundled up and headed outside. My car was buried midway up the doors (I have a Honda Civic, so the snow around my car was approximately thigh deep). The snow extended about two feet on every side of my car. Now, I will acknowledge that I made some mistakes. I had no idea how much snow my car could actually back up over, I didn’t feel well, and I wanted to do as little work as possible. So using a large hand shovel, I dug away the snow that was directly touching my car, cleared up under and behind the tires, and then dug two grooves behind my car for the tires to follow out. This was not effective. My car moved about 6 inches and then promptly got stuck. I rocked it back and forth, and then dug it out some more. Again, I cleaned up around the tires and cleared some (not all) of the snow behind my car. I tried moving again and got another 6 inches. I did this probably four times, until I finally got the back tires past the dense pack of snow behind my car. Then the front tires got stuck, and now my car was protruding out into the parking lot. Because my car had front wheel drive, I couldn’t move it back where it had come from, I still couldn’t get all the way out of the spot, and so I was faced with digging out more snow. It was now almost midnight, I felt incredibly weak and achy, and I just sat there for a few minutes hoping no cars wanted to drive through the lot. As I was sitting there, I asked myself “What if I can’t do this?”

“What if I can’t do this?” I weighed my other options. Being almost midnight, I did not feel comfortable calling someone to ask for advice or to come bail me out. Also, I live pretty far outside Rochester. I could not just leave my car and try again in the morning, because now I couldn’t get back into my parking space. I was also unwilling to call AAA and explain to them that I was stuck in a relatively tiny patch of snow in my own parking lot. When I thought about all those things, I realized that I had to do it myself. Grumpily, I got back out and got to work again. Around 12:30 a.m I finally freed my Civic and moved to a new spot.

This whole experience may not seem like a big deal for those of you that are experienced with snow, but for me it was definitely an ordeal. However, like most ordeal, I learned some valuable lessons from that experience. Concerning snow, I should have backed my car into the spot. I should have moved it earlier in the day before the snow plows made several passes and increased the amount of snow piled up behind my car. I should have used cat litter. I should have dug out all the snow behind me the first time, because it would have been way faster in the long run.

More importantly than all that, I learned that I could do it myself; I figured it out on my own. Now, there is nothing wrong with asking for help—everyone definitely should reach out when they need it. I lean on friends and family for emotional and physical support all the time.

But I did feel pretty empowered knowing that I had persevered and, by god, I moved that car myself!