Done

I am... tired. Beyond tired, even. I'm just kind of *done*. I have no focus, I have no enthusiasm, I'm impatient but not because there's anything I particularly want to *do*. In fact, it's kind of the opposite: I just want to stop doing things. I want this day to be over. I want my job to be over.

I'm not suicidal. I don't want to leave my family. I'm just... I deeply tired of being tired. I'm deeply tired of being discouraged. I'd like to have some motivation back. I'd like to have some energy. I'd like to have some sense of morale.

If I'm about to get sick, then I'd like to just run a fever (or whatever) and get it over with. I don't think that's it, though. I just want everyone to shut up and go away for a few days. Which is kind of a problem, since I'm parent to two pre-teen children and since my wife seems to be in just about the same place I am, emotionally speaking. And, honestly, when I wrote this the boys were doing a lovely job of entertaining themselves; it's just that I can hear one boy's YouTube videos and the other boy's video game, and I want it all to stop.

I swear, I used to enjoy things. I used to have hobbies. I used to be able to finish things, at least every once in a while.

Right now, though -- and I'm going to set this to publish later, not just after I finished writing it, so with any luck none of you will read it until after I'm somewhat recovered -- right now I don't want to do any of it. I just want to bury myself in the earth for fifty years, like one of Ann Rice's vampires, or plug myself into cryosleep for a century-long trip to another planet. I want to turn into a statue and wait until the proper alignment of the stars recalls me to life and movement.

I want to stop needing to do all the things that right now I still need to do.

Instead, I'm going to put the boys down to bed. And in the morning I'll wake them up and I'll go to work again. I'll even pretend I care about what I'm doing there, though I don't guarantee it'll be convincing.

And I think... I hope... that I'll start looking for some way to make a change. Because I think it's vital, especially in a mood like this, to remind myself that things really can get better. And maybe if I act like it, I'll start to believe it again.