Love is better the second time around.

For some reason, I’m not particularly motivated to write this afternoon. I had planned on slapping something together yesterday, but I ended up a getting a little too busy to allow myself the necessary time to craft anything that could be deemed quasi-redeemable. With that in mind, I figured that I’d wait until this afternoon when I’d surely have the necessary motivation/inspiration that I needed. Well I waited, and waited, and waited some more…nothing. I don’t know if it’s that I spent a good portion of my morning writing about a variety of work related topics or that I just don’t have “it” today. Either way, I’m really struggling to think of anything worth writing about.

One topic that has been at the forefront of mind of late has been the significant change in my life since this time last year. Despite my regular hot flashes, I’m not talking about the onset of menopause (not yet at least). Rather the differences that have resulted from my decision to leave my job during May of last year. At this time last year, I was in the midst of a two month period of seven day workweeks and 12+ hour days. This personal hell was also combined with a paycheck so small that I’d have been better served if I’d have taken the opportunity to be a Guatemalan drug mule two summers ago. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was doing all of this work for a baseball team that had no owner, no stadium and exactly zero idea of when either of these inequities would be rectified.

As someone who grew up in Florida, I had always loved the month of March. What’s not to love? The weather is gorgeous, Spring Training sites seemingly pop up every 50 miles, and the NCAA Tournament completely dominates that sports landscape for the better part of the month. It’s safe to say that March was easily my favorite month of the year…was. That’s until I took a job working for a minor league baseball team. A team that also happened to play their home games at a Spring Training site. As anyone who has worked in sports knows, the hours are long and the pay is often bad. That’s part of the deal, and I was prepared for it. However, I wasn’t prepared to be the personal bitch of a major league baseball team for a two month period. A time that would see me perform such tasks as pressure washing, painting, sign hanging and any number of other menial tasks for which I had not signed up. At first I took it all in stride. Perhaps it was the excitement of being “inside” Spring Training, or perhaps it was the lie being told to so many employees like me who were constantly being serenaded with the siren song of a job at the Major League level. Whatever the reason I stayed on for that entire first spring, despite working until 3 am on the night before Opening Day (of Spring) while watching most of the efforts of myself (and my peers) go completely unnoticed.

By the time that last March rolled around, the novelty had long since worn off. Not only had I worked Spring Training (as well as an entire Minor League season) but I’d also been working seven days a week since the day after the Super Bowl. If that wasn’t enough to push me over the edge, I wouldn’t be getting a day off until the 2nd of April and would also be forced to work during the first two days of the NCAA Tourney (for the second consecutive year). March sucked. I hated everything about March. I won’t even bother to tell you how I felt about baseball. I was so over my job and the conditions under which I worked that I wasn’t even leaving my office during the Spring Training games, even though I had access to the best seats in the stadium. Unless I had a specific player that I wanted to watch for an inning or two, I just holed up in my office and worked as thousands of people flocked to the stands above me in hopes of catching a glimpse of their favorite players. At this point, I knew that I wouldn’t be doing my job for too much longer. In a sense, that was a shame. I genuinely enjoyed working with the people I worked with (with, not for) and would realize how much I missed their collective company as the months passed during the summer. However, no level of great company could make up for the enjoyment, social life, wages, and sanity that my employment had robbed me of. I made it through the Spring with a little help from the weather (An unbelievably well timed rain out on Regional Final Saturday which allowed me to watch both the Louisville-WVU and Illinois-Arizona classics) and a healthy supply of urban vegetables. I handed in my resignation in early May, as the thought of another summer wasted in an empty ballpark finally became too much for me to bear.

As anyone who has read this space knows, I bounced around from job to job before finally settling into my current position in late December. I’m exponentially more healthy (ballpark food 80+ nights a year is surprisingly unhealthy…who knew?), happy and wealthy than I was during any time while working in baseball.

As for the month of March and I…Well, we’ve made up. In fact, I’m taking next Thursday and Friday off to watch the first round of the NCAA Tournament (like I did for the previous ten years before I took a job in baseball). As if that wasn’t enough (trust me, it is) I’m also leaving work early tomorrow to catch a Spring Training game (as a fan) for the first time in three years. Guess where I’ll be attending this game? The very same stadium that served as the bane of my existence for a year and a half. I’m not quite sure if that qualifies as poetic justice, but its close enough for me.

Long Live March!