One of the best things Northern has to offer is its environment. After growing up in a tourist trap beach town my entire life, moving to the wilderness has been a wonderful experience. It’s not everywhere where you can decide to walk into the woods for a hike and return to civilization like nothing happened at all.
Right now, I’d rather be anywhere else than Marquette.
Don’t take this the wrong way— I love Marquette. What I don’t love is the snow, it’s not even that, but the persistent snow we’ve seen the past month.
I’ve lived in Marquette full time for over a year now, and I consider it my home. This winter has been the worst I’ve seen in my entire time living here since my schooling began years ago. Yoopers are a different breed putting up with this snow their entire lives.
I recently went on a trip that required me to travel downstate. I was so jealous that they barely had an inch of snow. It’s crazy to me that a location in the Lower Peninsula has such a change in precipitation.
Most of the time when I think about the amount of snow in my front yard I remind myself that my hometown most likely has the same or close to it. After seeing less than an inch, it was hard to gaslight myself into comparing the two locations anymore.
I don’t normally get seasonally depressed, but after spending a week in the Bahamas and then returning to a mountain of snow in my front yard — it sent me over the edge.
Not to mention in the days following my return I was greeted with winter storms and even more snow being dumped on my sidewalk.
Right now I feel like I’m being buried alive in snow.
Even as I’m writing this all I can think about is the love story going on between my shovel and I. I wish it was a breakup novel, but it continues to be a tale of two lovers from different backgrounds that meet on odd occasions. A tale that is dragged on forever, and no happy ending.
At one point I loved the snow. I was born in Florida, so the first time I saw snow it was magical. I’d always seen it in films and romanticized the idea of the white, fluffy substance.
It wasn’t until my first year living off campus I realized snow wasn’t as good as it seems.
Growing up I was never responsible for removing snow. Now with the burden of shoveling driveways and sidewalks I understood why people complained about it.
It’s not because I don’t like shoveling.
It’s the constant need to babysit my sidewalk and driveway. There’s no way to get away from the snow, and this year there’s been no breaks to even catch a breath. Every single night I’ve set an alarm an hour earlier so I can get up and check the end of my driveway and sidewalk to see if it needs shoveling. Every morning I’ve gotten up to that alarm and mustered up the courage to shovel in my pajama pants because if I didn’t, my car would get stuck in the monstrous amount of snow.
Maybe if there weren’t such a disastrous amount of snow on the ground and falling from the sky I’d feel different. Maybe I’ll regain a liking for snow as the days grow longer and temperatures rise. For now I’ll keep my petty hatred for the powder locked in.
Next year I’ll re-evaluate my relationship with it. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, but for this relationship to work, the snow will have to let up on its constant dump.
