Dependency

I think I’ve developed a dopamine dependency.

It’s not technically possible to get addicted to dopamine. It occurs naturally in our bodies, and we can’t directly take it as a food or drug. However, it’s possible to get addicted to any activity that increases our dopamine levels.

I’ve been waking each morning feeling a bit flat. Walking the dogs doesn’t help. Going to a gym class doesn’t help.

Talking to people raises my dopamine levels. Being in the ocean helps. So does live music.

But it’s not always possible to do those things. My aversion to talking on the phone means talking to people must be done in person, which is not always easy at 5.30am.

The ocean has been so rough lately, meaning swimming has been tricky.

I saw live music last week, but you can’t be doing that every night.

So I find myself anxiously searching around for other ways to get my dopamine spikes.

I lie in bed at night flicking through all 500 listings on cruise line websites. I am pretty sure that’s a bit weird and not a good use of my time.

I found a cruise that I decided DD and I must do. And I because completely fixated on it. When he announced that we might not be able to go because he may need to attend a conference, I freaked out.

Me freaking out is a very internal thing. I didn’t speak for about 20 minutes was basically what it looked like from the outside. I didn’t speak for two reasons: I am very conscious of not saying unpleasant things in the heat of the moment that can’t be taken back, and I was really upset because I was counting on planning that cruise holiday to keep my dopamine levels up and deter me from compulsively spending more pointless hours on cruise websites.

Fixating on stuff is very me.

Just before my husband left our marriage I was obsessed with the most fabulous barbecue system I’d seen at Bunnings, which came with a sink and bar fridge and wok burner.

Our barbecue was a rusted heap that my husband refused to replace, I suspect because he knew he wasn’t going to be around to using it. A bit like the way he kept changing the subject when I tried to talk to him about replacing our rusted heap of a car or using our long service leave to take the kids to live in France for a few months.

When I expressed my desire for the whizz-bang barbecue, he infamously intoned: “Alana, happiness is not to be found in a new barbecue.”

Those words have never left me. They’ve joined the verbal burns I’ve been given during my life that rattle around in my head haunting my thoughts whenever I question myself and my worth.

Happiness was not to be found in our old barbecue either, because it looked like this …

When we were getting ready to sell the family home, we tried to move it, but it was so decrepit that it fell apart. I experienced a little shiver of secret delight and vindication in that moment.

I haven’t owned a BBQ since then, although I still gaze longingly at the awesome stone-topped one that provoked marital consternation every time I visit Bunnings …

During the dying days of our marriage was also hyper-obsessed with getting a swimming pool and it became virtually my only topic of conversation. I can look back now and imagine the loathing that my constant jabbering incited.

Fast forward 10 years and I’m doing the same thing to DD with cruises. I’m finding it hard to shut up. I’ve told him he needs to let me know when I’m damaging our relationship with too much cruise talk.

I suspect it’s being driven by exhaustion after a year of really hard yakka in my day job, which the few weeks off over Christmas didn’t entirely obliterate. And I don’t think it helps that the youngest has moved away from home and tells me she already feels more at home there after only a week than she does at my place.

Adding to the blahs … I also gave away my fridge over the weekend to a young person in need, forgetting that leaving it shut in the garage for 18 months might have lead to mould issues. Sure enough it was a bit black inside, so hours on Saturday night were spent scrubbing it. Not uplifting, though it’s great that I could help someone.

I feel like I am at a crossroad in my life where I need to reassess what happiness looks like for me again. My ex-husband was right, it’s not to be found in a new barbecue.

And while there is happiness to be found in a holiday, it can’t become an all-consuming obsession.

I need to work out what will help me get out of bed each morning without heaviness in my heart. (Don’t worry, I usually find some mojo by the afternoon, it’s mainly mornings that are hard.)

Will advise.

Song of the day: Prince “Let’s go crazy”