I’ve spent a good amount of time lately not blogging, not blogsurfing, not putting myself out there to network network network. I’ve also stopped looking for new work, have been outsourcing a good chunk of the work I already have, and am turning down new proposals left and right. For a few weeks, I thought it was either a minor case of mental breakdown or a big case of burnout. But now, I’m starting to think it’s more just that my perception has changed.
Life doesn’t feel like an emergency anymore. I don’t feel like my own biggest competitor or enemy anymore. I seem to have lost the need to be needed and liked and laughed at and adored. This isn’t Cheers — not everybody needs to know my name.
I’m not sure what brought about the above epiphany, other than that I woke up one day and thought, “What the fuck am I doing this for? I have money but no time to spend it. I have a good life with no time to live it.” I felt like one of the lawyers I used to work for, who I’d look at and think “You make 4 million dollars a year, and yet you’re the saddest person on the planet. I so don’t want to be you when I grow up.”
I realized I’d grown up, and I was filling shoes I didn’t want to fill. I’ve always preferred to run barefoot.
I’d gotten so caught up in pleasing my clients, being the best, living for my work that I lost sight of why I was doing what I was doing. I quit my 80-hr-work-week paralegal life in 2004 to be free. I’ve since rebuilt that same stress-filled existence for myself, only from home. The biggest problem with this is that when you’re a batshit crazy workaholic nutjob working from home, there’s no where to go at the end of the day to get away. Except maybe London. I’ve been considering moving to London.
Here’s the thing I’ve decided is true, at least for me: like all the great therapists of the world say you can’t run from yourself, you also can’t run from your stress addiction. If you’re a stress addict, you will continue to attract stress like a big fat magnet. Even if you’re sitting in silence under the willow tree in the yard, some dude will pass by and say “Excuse me, ma’am, but I’ve lost my dog. Can you please help me?” I know, because this happened to me the other week. I am a magnet.
I’m currently in happy-camp, hanging out and traveling with a group of folks so insanely happy that it’s impossible not to catch their disease. I’m demagnetizing.
And how are you?
