Emptiness

What a tough day. All day I watched myself as a third party - an outsider of my own body. I sat in meetings and nodded. "Smile," I told myself. "Don't look as bored as you feel."

"It's all about Jesus," one of my coworkers said. "Jesus is what changes these guys."

Why doesn't He change me? I wondered. "Smile and nod," I told myself. On cue, my lips turned upward. I smiled, feeling empty and exhausted.

Trapped in an extrovert's world, I go through the motions of what I'm supposed to do. I feel like I was made for a different time or place. For something other than what I'm forcing myself to do.

I hate it. I hate calling people and asking them for money. I hate tracking things in spreadsheets. I hate sitting in meetings where the other person goes on and on about miraculous life change or about process after process. Another spreadsheet. Another form. Another way to track a measurable outcome.

After a while, it all gets to be the same. Another day, another dollar. How long can I go on like this? I hate what it does to me, how I feel at the end of the day.

I told myself this morning I would be able to go home after lunch if I just couldn't do it anymore. I made it through the day in four-hour increments, but I hated every second.

There's got to be something else, some other way of supporting myself that I don't hate so much. There has got to be a way to survive financially without hating my life.

And there's also the loneliness piece. I not only hate my life while I'm at this job. I feel like I'm wasting it, like I'm waiting for my life to start, waiting to meet someone I can love.