I don’t intend for the title to sound alarming. This isn’t about depression, though the bouts with depression do not help. This is about staying in the same house, in the same family, at the same job, maintaining the same relationships, sticking to the same routine, and participating in the same hobbies. Sunup to sundown. Seven days a week.

I like most of the things I just listed. I like my house. I love my family. My hobbies are fantastic, and I do pick up new hobbies. The mechanical keyboard thing is relatively new, and making stuff with the 3D printer is also new.

It isn’t that I don’t appreciate what I have. I do. I just feel stuck most of the time, and I don’t know what to change.

Everything is great with Melissa, so don’t misread anything into what I’m saying. The reason I’m writing this tonight is because today was a really difficult work day, and it’s not even finished. A lot of time, in order to accomplish what I need to accomplish with work, I have to sacrifice parts of my evening. It’s the only time I have to actually focus. The rest of the work hours are all about helping other people and putting out figurative fires.

Today, I really wanted to quit. I just wanted to tell my boss to shove it, and that they can figure it all out on their own.

Maybe if I was twenty years younger, I would have. I don’t know. Now it feels too irresponsible to upset my whole life just because of a bad day. I know that it isn’t just one bad day, that these feelings have been building up for a long time, but it still seems like a bad idea.

I like working in the solar industry. I like my company. I like my coworkers. I just get tired of feeling powerless to affect change, which is weird as hell because I actually have power at my company to get things done. What I lack is time and energy.

It’s exhausting. Things break, and then I break myself trying to fix those things, and then stumble into the next problem, wishing I could just catch my breath and focus for a few days.

The vacation was supposed to help with that. But Covid impacted the efficacy of the vacation, and when I got home, the same problems I thought I fixed were still there, and now that’s all I’m able to focus on. I’m not gaining any ground. Everything is slipping, and it feels like it’s my fault.

I put my head down and I keep trying, and it feels like I’m going to get fired, no matter how hard I work.

I’m tired. But I’ll keep going.

I wish I could just write. But at this point, I don’t think I’m ever going to make money doing that. To be a successful writer, you have to have already made it, or you have to be a good salesperson.

I’m not giving up on the writing dream. I just don’t feel a ton of optimism at the moment. I’ll keep going. At least the writing part brings me a great deal of satisfaction.

It’s going to be a long week. And I don’t know how much longer I can keep this going.