A confession

I am a work alcoholic. I thought I was cured but apparently it is a lifelong condition that can only be treated and slightly controlled. It never completely goes away.  Throughout much of my later work years I typically worked fifty hours or more at the office, I frequently took work home and for virtually all of my work life I was on call. Not that I got a lot of calls at home that required me to go into to work on the weekends, but the awareness that every time the telephone rang it could be work was tiresome and draining. There was a time in my life that I think I held my breath when the phone rang, afraid it would be for me while at the same time enjoying that brief surge of adrenaline.  However unlike perhaps more traditional work alcoholics I did manage to spread out my "disease" across both my home life and work life. I had, on my desk at work, a constantly updated to-do list; I had the same sort of list at home. In both places I could never relax until everything was crossed off of that list. That virtually never happened.  There were weeks and weeks when it seemed as if for everything that I crossed off the top of the list, two things got added to the bottom.

When I stopped working full time, I thought it would get better. In fact for awhile it did. I made a conscious effort to relax and to just do nothing. It was difficult but it did feel good. But slowly the addiction to keep busy crept back into my life. I didn't realize it at first. I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and it was fun (which in hindsight is exactly the same excuse I used throughout my work life). Going to school was hard work but it was incredibly rewarding. I have told countless classes that the trick of getting through school is not how smart you are but rather how well you manage your time. I managed mine by keeping to a rigorous schedule; by using lists to manage my time.

Nothing has changed. This past semester was a very busy one for me in terms of teaching load (I had six classes). It was also somewhat chaotic because five of those classes were different subjects and two of the subjects were brand new to me. It was a fair amount of work. To get through the term I really did need to be organized. At home I also had things that I needed to do (perhaps I need to start replacing "needed" with "wanted"). I had purchased eight or nine fleeces in the late spring of last year and was determined to get them all processed by the end of this semester. No particular reason why - I just set that goal.

Now that I am almost finished all of my weaving projects I am starting to get panicky that I won't have anything to do; I am starting to creating impossible schedules that mean I will be very busy. For example I have decided to rent a stall at the local Farmer's Market to sell some of my weaving. I made that decision because I have too much weaving around the house. I am running out of places to store it. But if I do sell stuff at the market then I will need to make more so I have lots for the Christmas sales. Which means that I will have to buy more wool and then process it and then....... It will never end.

I wake up most morning early. By 6:30 I am up and ready for the day. I have done the list of things to do, compared it with the master list on the fridge and started working. This is silly. I need to slow down. I am retired.

Perhaps my trip this summer is exactly what I need to slow down. One of the most exciting things and perhaps the scariest things about hitchhiking is that I have no control over whether or not I get a ride. It is hard to be a control freak or a work alcoholic when you have no power, no job and all of your current possessions are on your back. Perhaps just confessing that I have a condition is the first step to dealing with it.