I haven’t written much. I’ve started twice, and have those entries saved… it’s just that someone else’s life was involved since January, and it’s not really fair to put someone else’s life on public exhibition.  I also haven’t been CouchSurfing all that much– although I did hit a few states on business, and made sure to do so by CouchSurfing.  I haven’t counted couches since Couch 65 though, which is when I came back here to GA.  So… life was mostly peachy with Angela (Couch 44).  She was really sweet.  In fact, only after she was gone (I basically ended it- and it was a pattern that I’ve had in my previous relationships) did I realize how extraordinary she was.  She just wanted to love me.  After she left back to Chicago, I was doing fine for a while… but having had time to think about it (and we still talk on occasion… still friends, though now talking hurts both of us), I tried to figure out why it was that I didn’t do the things she wanted, that I had said I had wanted to do.  Things such as exploring Atlanta, going to plays, trying all sorts of new restaurants, adventuring some more…. I wanted to… why didn’t I? I’d always claim the money excuse… I’d always be working till late in the night.  Was I hiding behind my work?  Was I using it to purposefully distance myself? Those seemed like obvious excuses, but I’ve done this in the past. I’ve had incredible girls love me before, and work always came 1st– and for what? It was something I heard in a recent lecture that made things click:

You all know how I’m always studying…. usually marketing, psychology, copywriting, business, programming, design, and biographies.  Most days I’m studying something.  In one of these lectures (can’t remember which one, and about what) I remember this guy talking about addiction.  He was saying how people think that all fat people can “just change their eating habits, go on a diet, exercise a little, maybe take a pill, and all is fine…. Oh…. you can’t ‘REALLY’ be addicted to food… that’s just silly.. you must be lazy.”  People that think that alcoholics can just go to AA and all is fine…. that they “just don’t have self control…. kind of like the fat people with their food.”  These people have obviously never had to deal with an addiction.  They’ve obviously never been to a true ______holics support group, or spent time with a true addict.  These people will lose — sacrifice — their most valuable things… their jobs, their families, their homes even!  Just to get that next fix.  You joke about it… “Some crack-whore who says ‘I’ll suck you for a bump’ “(that’s cocaine for the less informed).  But.. a real addict has no control over it.  There are obviously differing degrees of addiction.  You hear about nymphomaniacs, alcoholics, potheads, crackheads, obese foodaholics, winos, and more.. but while the term “Workaholic” is used to describe a hard worker… it is not taken seriously by many as a real addiction.

In trying to figure out what the hell went wrong — why I just didn’t want to do things that I really enjoy doing…. I just wanted to work… I looked up support groups, articles, etc… and while I didn’t find any support groups here — please contact me if you know of any — I did find many articles that describe the symptoms.  I scored 100% on every test.  I was truly shocked!  What the fuck (yeah.. I wrote fuck… after almost two years of blogging, I’m fine with it.  You know me already- and I’m not “rated G wholesome”)?  I mean… all these years… I’ve been joking around saying that I’m a workaholic… but I never meant it literally… I just meant that I had a good work ethic, and was often business minded.  No wonder I felt so free while I was couch surfing, and not working!  I was just traveling, meeting incredible people, seeing and doing incredible things, and having tons of time to just ponder the universe…. When I’m stationary, I work.  It’d be the equivalent of someone who likes to have a drink with dinner joke that they’re an alcoholic, only to discover that they really are… and that it cost them precious people in their lives.

I’m truly grateful that I have such a close, intelligent, understanding, and supporting family.  They may not always get me, but we’ve all been there for each other through many crazy adventures and times.  My older brother knows people who see therapists or go to support groups for all sorts of things.  I’ve never gone to any of that for myself.  I did go with Couch 30 to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but I even made a little joke out of grabbing a drink afterwards.

Angela found some guy pretty quickly.  She wasn’t searching, she just happened to meet him at work, and due to work, they had to spend a lot of time together, and realized they had tons in common.  He’s slightly older than me, but seems to have his shit together, and he keeps telling her how lucky he is to have her in his life.  He accepts her exactly as she is.  There’s something I learned a lot about recently.  The next girl will really have it good, as I learned a lot about relationships.  I am happy for her — as I clearly did not accept her “just as is” — but it still hurts to think that she’s being so loving of someone else.  When she moved in with me, my place was empty– no furniture, no decorations.  If it wasn’t for her, my place would be pretty drab still… but now I have these awesome couches, and this great dining set, and nice lamps, and some “runners” (these rugs for the hallway), and carpeting in the living room, and cool shower curtains, and an awesome bed spread, and all sorts of neat stuff in the kitchen.  To top that off, she hid all sorts of notes throughout the house.  When my parents came to visit, I found another note. Today, (2 months after the breakup  basically), I was looking for this one cable, and I went into the nightstand and found this beautiful note “in case you miss me” — oh man.. I could barely breathe after reading it.  It spoke of the future that might have been.  I was just getting to the point where I could try to move forward again.  I decided to have a non-workaholic day (despite that I worked straight through the night)- I went to the gym, I worked out hard, I laid out by the pool, I went to a neighbor’s place and watched the olympics (wow!).  I even wrote this blog entry.

I’m not trying to tell what Angela wrote in her private letters.  I have way too much respect to do that to her.  I just wanted to emphasize that she just wanted to love me and have a future together (and was really good at hiding notes, because this one totally caught me by surprise), and that I sacrificed that because of work.  Admitting a problem is the 1st step they say.  I am already making plans to take on projects that are more time-based (9-6?), so that I can spend all my nights and weekends with friends, family, and hopefully a significant other.  Additionally, I have the most incredible anniversary gift from Angela:  she wrote me all these letters while we were dating… she wrote how she felt when I did what. I have never had someone communicate their feelings to me before like this.  It made me realize how I made her feel all this time– the nice things, and how happy they made her, and the work thing (and my other occasional shitty behavior), and how sad that made her.  Her letters made me understand what love is (what someone else feels, and how powerful it is).  I truly wish her the best, and the happy fairytale ending she deserves.  Before you start saying what an asshole I am– i.e. she moved to ATL to be with you, how could you break up with her? — remember that she was originally going to live here for 3 months anyways, and that she’s totally happy with this guy, and even said “Wow.. it was so hard with the breakup… but maybe it wasn’t supposed to work… because otherwise I wouldn’t have met him!”

So… there you have it.  I’m a certified workaholic.  I can do something about it. I learned about how it has affected other people.  I blogged, since I haven’t done that in a while.

If you have any information on work-addiction, and resources, I’d really appreciate it.