How Blossom got her groove back

Today, after a full week of hiking, shoveling, sifting, and sweating, it finally felt good.

Since I started working here, I've been lethargic and unmotivated for no reason. Getting plenty of rest, eating well, and staying hydrated did nothing to help. Hiking to the sites and doing the heavy work wasn't fun for me like it used to be. I jumped away from ants, gasped at spiders, tried to stay out of the dirt, and gingerly dabbed sweat off my face with a gym towel. I asked others to lift the heavy buckets into the sifter for me and half-assed shoveling the dirt underneath it. Work that used muscles wasn't fun, so it wasn't really fun at all.

I realized it earlier today when I had to admit that I actually couldn't lift the full buckets at all. Something about that admission felt terrible. They were just buckets of dirt, max 20lbs, and I couldn't lift them? My backpack in high school weighed that much. It dawned on me then that I have become a freaking GIRL.

Apparently, realizing this pissed me off so much, I got my mojo back. Suddenly the shovels felt lighter, the dirt felt thinner, and the pit seemed a lot more shallow. I leveled the whole thing, bringing the 4 square meter pit down by 5cm so quickly I had to stop and wait for the sifters because I had filled ALL the buckets on site. The girls in the other pit got mad. One of the women got mad because lifting the full buckets is difficult, and I had filled them completely. She told me I should start lifting them into the sifter if I was gonna to do that, SO I DID.

I felt so great about it. I know it was coming from anger- anger at being the littlest always, anger at having people always taking things and helping me when I don't need it, anger at knowing I'm not as tough as I want to be, or as I used to be. But I got my passion for work back, the excitement of being outside and straining yourself for no good god damn reason. The satisfaction of finally laying down in bed afterwards. Most importantly, I didn't feel TIRED anymore.

This evening I went to the reef in Pago Bay. I sat still in the water so the fish moved around me. I collected hermit crabs in empty oyster shells and watched them crawl in the sand.


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