Monday, January 17, 2011

My name is onSanity, and I'm an aid junkie

I finished last year just before it finished me off.

Too much work coupled with too much stress and too many parasites that European doctors could not locate left me absolutely shattered. I was happy to cancel my last job, even though it was interesting, even though it meant a loss of money, I honestly could not have done it.

The new year came and with it new resolutions. As always, I promised to do better, try harder, be smarter. My “word” for 2011 is “Balance”.

Yet, it is January 17 and I can’t help it, I am starting to get the jitters, the shakes and having a hard time focusing. I am working hard on finishing my book, but I need my fix. You aid workers know what I am talking about, I don’t care if you refuse to recognize it publicly: we get addicted, and it’s hard to let go of the drug.

I have a job that is coming, I know it’s just around the corner, and I know that once it arrives it’s going to slap me in the face. They will want everything for yesterday, and I will have to start the marathon: setting the dates, getting the flights, hotels, arrangements for the kids, (pant, pant, pant)….. I should just be enjoying this time to write, to take the kids to school, to meet for a lazy coffee…. but I can’t help it, my body is asking for it. I need my adrenalin fix. I need to be handed something unknown, in a place I may or may not have been to before. I need to start deciphering the piles of documents handed to me, putting the puzzle together, trying to guess what is not being said, what I might be missing, and how I’m going to get it (pant, pant, pant). I need to go somewhere exotic where I can take photos of strangers and tell their story, (shake, shake, sweat coming down my forehead), preferably somewhere warm, away from this unbearably grey weather. Even if that means that I will end up pouring water over my face halfway through an interview because I am about to faint from the heat, even though it means exposing myself to parasites yet again, being away from the kids, even though it means working through jet lag.

I need to be out there, I need to go into the airport bathroom with my mommy suit, and come out like superman from his phone booth, transformed into an aid worker: switch my boots for muddied flip flops, the grocery store for the four wheel drive, my cotton sheets for mosquito netting.

I can’t help it.

My name is onSanity, and I’m and aid junkie

4 comments:

Mirko said...

Do you need an assistant? ;-)

Diana said...

Hey, if you need help, count on me!
In a way Im also addicted to beeing bussy bussy helping others, the difference is that I dont get paid for it, at least not in the usual way.

Muddling Along said...

The adrenalin addiction I can totally understand - I've found that I'm happiest at work when I'm under pressure and pushed and well, when I'm between projects its just a bit dull and lacklustre

Give me a client, like my current one, where we're walking a tightrope between success and failure and I feel alive... sad but true

Good luck with the new project

Francesca from SummerHills Reteat Bangalow Accommodation said...

I admire your focus and drive and your guts to admit that you're an Aid junkie out loud. I'm an Adrenalin Junkie too and I couldn't admit this until I read an amazing book "Adrenalin Junkies and Serotonin Seekers" and it changed my life. Being able to understand I was the former and not the latter, meant I could stop making excuses for myself being addicted to The Rush, The Project, The Big High. The main thing this book taught me was to PACE MYSELF. BALANCE. And to stop STRIVING FOR PERFECTIONISM as this would kill me. Highly recommend this book - it advocates keeping your "Adrenalin Junkie" self but gives great tips on how to manage the highs and lows and in betweens which depress us junkie types... I am also married to a "Serotonin Seeker" so it helped me understand him better too :) This book is written by Matt church an Australian physiotherapist! I got it off Amazon... here's a link.. hope it helps :)

http://www.amazon.com/Adrenaline-Junkies-Serotonin-Seekers-Well-Being/dp/1569754373