I took a leap and was rewarded. Four weeks into my new job as a Cold Apprentice for a local electrical utility contractor and I’m quite pleased with my mood, mindset, and energy levels. My mood tracking app shows that I’ve had a mood well above average for the past several weeks, which I can attribute to the nature of the work and experiencing a great deal of novelty.

I’m well aware that the novelty will eventually pass so I’m milking it for all it’s worth. One day, setting a 70’ concrete pole into a 20’ hole will be old hat, and hauling a 65’ wood pole to the job site will be, if not routine, certainly not as nerve-wracking as my first time this past week.

Somehow I managed to safely deliver that pole to its new location, drive an hour south in the digger truck while towing a trailer, and yet I still managed to run that trailer into the gatepost at the contractor’s Georgia office. In this line of work, stuff is going to break. Whether it be due to wear and tear, or good old human error. My general foreman jokingly asked if I had enjoyed working for the contractor, before we got to work re-aligning the gate with an F-250, a winch, and some hand tamps. Then he said: “If that’s the only thing you break in this line of work you’ll be lucky.”

It’s cool to be in an industry where no one really bats an eye at a genuine mistake that doesn’t hurt another person. Tools and equipment can be fixed. Hell, I’ve now been involved in pulling heavy trucks out of mud at least half a dozen times in three weeks. I’ve screwed up plenty because even though I went to school to improve my knowledge of this industry, I certainly don’t know everything, but I at least know which questions to ask.

I’m working Monday through Thursday, ten hours each day. Unless there is some emergency or a storm my crew is involved in helping with, I have three day weekends and plenty of time to myself. I’m up by 5:30AM, have the trucks running and defrosting by 6:45AM, and at the job site by 7AM. We work to about 1PM, enjoy lunch, and punch out before 5PM. This past Wednesday, we worked a double because we were installing two, massive concrete poles, which needed to be delivered at night.

I get back to my hotel room tired, dirty, and sometimes bruised, but I’ve noticed: always happy. Part of that may still be due to the novelty, in which case I’m taking full advantage! Most of that feeling of happiness is due to:

• Getting an entire day’s worth of sunlight.

• Manual labor that isn’t repetitive.

• The freedom to curse liberally and with great relish when frustrated.

• Not one work email that requires a response.

When my work day is finished I take some time to soak in a bubble bath, listen to an audiobook, and spend a little time working on a few projects that I’ve been contracted to complete. All-in-all I’m experiencing a significant amount of physical, emotional, and mental fulfillment when combining my new job with other tasks that bring me joy. While I completely expect to screw something up on the job this week, I’m confident enough that I’ll learn from it and the inevitable razzing I’ll get from the rest of the crew will help serve my integration from the “new guy” to the “new guy we can trust.”

A good friend of mine said that he was happy that I had found my path to happiness, and commented that it was fascinating how that path is different for every person. This time last year I was still in Skyland Trail’s Intensive Outpatient Program, attending six hours worth of therapy each day and trying to get my mind right for what felt like the umpteenth time. I left there in the best mental state I had ever enjoyed, and returned to a job that I thought I wanted. Making stupid money, but feeling my anxiety over the job erode my newly established mental foundation. Leaving my job was not a hard decision, but doing so during the COVID-19 pandemic, corresponding isolation, and facing a mountain of medical debt made for a significant risk.

It’s been a weird path this past year, and I’m still apprehensive about what the immediate future will hold. But I’m not allowing that to hold me back. I’m moving forward, doing my own thing, and getting to help people in the process.

Not a bad start to 2021.