not like riding a bike

I haven't written in a long time. Longer than I think I've ever really taken a break from this thing, whatever it really is. It's been a big roller coaster these past few months. Stressful, busy days at work. Depressing, difficult stuff in my personal life (family stuff, not Amanda). Life's been hard. One or the other is okay. At least you can deal with personal stuff if work isn't demanding 100 hour work weeks from you - or at least you can deal with work if you personal life isn't constantly nagging at you for attention and clouding your focus.

Things have been hard. Work has been a bit of a safety net, to be honest. Work is emotionless. Work is predicated upon professionalism and financial decisions, not shaky concepts such as loyalty, respect, and love. And the more I work, the more I can not focus on the depressing personal stuff that I don't have any control over, input into, or even real-time interaction with.

The problem is, the more I work, the worse things get for other elements of my personal life. I hate how much my work effects my ability to spend time with Amanda. There are times when I feel like a workaholic. And yet, I know that I would be totally fine handing this work off to someone else, if only there was someone else to hand it off to. I want to have a normal life back. I want to do things like go to the grocery store, or iron, or eat dinner with my wife. Normal stuff. But after working so hard for so long, I find it very difficult to go back to "normal."

I feel like I'm slacking off if I leave work at 6. It feels like I've only worked a half day. And then I go home and part of me is always thinking about work - what do I have to do tomorrow, what do I have to manage, what needs to be delegated/reassigned/put off until some other aspect of something is cleared up. I go to bed thinking about work. I dream about work. I wake up thinking about work.

I just want separation from it. I want to get back to a point where I'm able to leave the office at the office, leave the office at a normal hour and not feel guilty about it, and then go home and enjoy my time with Amanda.

Right now, I don't have that. And more depressingly for me, she doesn't have that either.