OBSESSED...(you say that like it's a bad thing)

Okay so a confession of sorts.

Sometimes I find myself obsessed with something.  Like literally obsessed.

Not in the way that a shoe blogger says "I'm obsessed with these shoes right now" or the adorable Brad Goreski who is so fond of saying things like "I'm obsessed with NEON right now".

Brad Gorseki

Because see, the thing is, they are not talking about really obsessing.

And I'm not talking about it as OCD, obsessive/compulsive disorder, which, although it does qualify as an obsession to wash your hands repeatedly or check to make sure the stove is off, is not really just pure obsession either.

And I'm not talking about the Calvin Klein perfume either.  Which does have some pretty alluring commercials.

No, I'm talking about being so interested in a particular topic or person or television show or whatever that you literally think about it every time you have a free moment.

When I was a legal secretary my boss used to observe that I would occasionally become super pre-occupied like a dog with a bone about something specific.  Finding something that was lost was a big one.  Or trying to figure out how to do something on the computer that we weren't able to do.  It could be anything that captures my weirdly often ADD attention span.  It's like I'm ADD but able to specifically and super focused on one thing while ignoring everything else at the same time.

Sometimes this serves me well.  Like when I'm really really interested in Alfred Adler and his theories and I'm also presenting a power point on him in class that week.  This is like kismet for me - because all the best things converge at the same time and allow me to be actually really good at something that I want to be good at for a moment.  Last week this happened when I presented on Yalom and Existential Theory.  I did the full 20 min presentation with no notes and felt totally 100% confident about my ability to just talk off the cuff about this man and his theories.  It's so great to be in a grad school program that actually caters to my interests.  Seriously.  Who can't love being in school and earning a degree in an area that literally fascinates me to no end.  Sometimes I even get a little anxiety that 2 years plus a year of internship is not nearly enough time to learn everything I want to learn.  (but no, I'm not going to get a PhD - though that would probably also cater to my obsessive characteristics well).

Yalom

But that was last week.  This week, even though I've done my homework, and worked on my talk for church and researched what jobs are available in my field and and worked on my group project - even though I have managed to be semi-productive, I have OBSESSED about Sons of Anarchy and Charlie Hunnam pretty much all week.

Charlie Hunnam

And by obsessed, I mean obsessed.

In every spare moment (and some that I did not have to spare - like giving up sleep to catch up on the show) I have thought about the show, looked up interviews with the writer and the cast, or watched the show.  5 seasons worth of show guys.  I don't even want to get into how many hours that entails or how much sleep I haven't gotten because of it.  I am powerless to resist.  I'm 3 episodes into season 5 and I'm so freaking sad that it will be over in 10 episodes and I'm stuck waiting til like next fall with all the other schmucks for it to start up again.

I did this once before with Mad Men.  I watched all four or five seasons of that show last year in pretty much a week.  It was totally crazy pants.  And I obsessed over Don Draper too.

Don Draper/John Hamm

I have not a clue what this says about my personality.

I used to feel really bad about being such an intensely curious person.  Because I think that describes my obsession - I just get super interested in a specific thing and really really curious and I can't stop myself from gorging on information about whatever that thing is.  I used to think this was a personality flaw.

My old boss used to say he wished he could dictate what my obsession could be - he would remark on my inattention to certain details while spending too much time on things he could have honestly cared less about.

It's a problem sort of I guess.

But I choose to embrace it.

Hopefully soon I'll become obsessed with ethics in mental healthcare (one of my classes) rather than a tv show about outlaw bikers.

But I'll enjoy this face in the meantime.