The Toll of Stress

I'm tired. Not sleepy tired. Weary tired. Despite the fact that I get at least seven hours of sleep each night, conduct regular exercise and eat reasonably well. I don't smoke, I hardly ever drink and aside from a bit of chocolate or a cookie every now and again I seldom snack between meals. So I'm living right yet I have no energy and lack the barest motivation to do anything besides laying on the couch after work.

What's up with me?

I believe the root cause is stress, depression or some combination of both. But I'd wager the more likely culprit is stress - and I'm getting it in giant, heaping potions every day at work. My job is incredibly stressful, it's generally not a lot of fun and I'm spending forty-five minutes commuting each way. The project I'm on is very complex and to be honest I barely understand what's going on around me at times. Granted, I've only been working there a couple months, so it's not unreasonable to be a little off-balance... but something's not right.

Deep down I'm not sure this is the right place or role for me. But my choices are limited.

Here's the deal, I'm forty-one years old and I'm in a young man's industry. The other people in my age-range are the executives - but I'm not one of them, I don't share their interests or their sensibilities, we're baiscally from different walks of life. I'm not really making connections with the people I work with nor am I finding satisfaction in the work itself. I often feel adrift.

Basically, I'm at a crossroads. The field I'm in is the only work I know and I'm really not happy doing it, but then I'm not particularly interested in starting over again either. I suppose this is a common malaise of the middle-aged man... fuck me, did I just call myself middle-aged?

I need to find a way to shake myself out of this. I need to find something that engages, challenges and fulfills me. But right now I'm out of my mind with fatigue and overwhelmed by the compounding stress. Today I left work early to visit a martial arts school near my home, something I've wanted to do for quite a while, but I just couldn't summon the strength to get up off the couch and drive over to the studio. I wasn't like this ten or fifteen years ago.

I'm ending this post on a down note - I know, who the fuck wants to read a depressing blog entry? But I'm having one of those days. I just hope it's the post-holiday blues. I've seriously gotta snap out of this; I'm sure my wife doesn't want to deal with a downer of a husband moping around the house. Christ, this sucks.