by Salamander Davis | July 23rd, 2010
Driving home this afternoon after 12 grueling days of work in a row, there lurked an ache in my stomach that I had not felt in a while (at least three weeks). During this fortnight of mental labor, I longed to sit in this chair at the coffee shop and relax. Sip on my lemonade green tea, release a month’s worth of caged thought into the wild, and smile at the occasional female.
But as I drove to this oasis, I was not filled with relief.
You may have observed that I am quite an obsessive person. Once I set my mind on a woman, a friendship, a cause, an organization, I clutch it and pull it in close, curling my body up into the fetal position and resign myself to never letting go. In Smegle-like fashion, all of my energy is spent trying to protect and nurture my precious. I carry it everywhere. I stay up all hours of the night thinking about it and every action I take is aimed at enhancing it.
I am not yet willing to say that I love my job or that I want to do it for the rest of my life (or even two years), but my job, my company, my co-workers are slowly becoming my precious. Partly by choice and partly by necessity, my work load over the past month has been obnoxious. It has reminded me of flipping a house or growing a mustache for cancer. It even reminds of the fraternity, for which six years of my life were almost exclusively devoted.
Part of me is very excited. My life revolves around having a precious. When with a precious, there is an added pep in my step. My pants fit better. My shoulders look manlier. Once my life revolves around a precious, I cannot be stopped. I will not be stopped.
So while the weekend is a blessing, for the first time since taking this job, I feel lost not being at work. Time is being wasted. I could be spending these two days stroking my precious and feeding it organic veggies. I could be reading my precious industry related books and increasing our bench press capabilities. I am excited and afraid that this might be the last weekend where I relax and enjoy non-work related activities. These might be the last two days where am I am not insanely devoted to my precious.