Life Without Hurt

As I sit here at my favorite coffee shop, waiting out of the cold before I start work in half an hour or so, I’m thinking to myself how long am I going to make myself suffer?

I am running on two hours of sleep. I’ve just used up the last of my gift card for a small iced coffee that I am hoping will be enough to get me through my next eight hour shift at work. I have a case report due for my psychopathology class today, and a discussion on consultation for my ethics class due as well. And I’m already running on empty. The sun has just risen, and I’m already dead.

And this isn’t the first time. I go through this over and over again, telling myself that things will change, that people will change. But nothing changes. I have to change. I have to realize that I have enough worth in this world and I have to make a change. I don’t deserve the life I’m leading right now.

I have so much going on. It may not seem like a lot to some, but it’s a lot to me. I work a job that I really happen to enjoy, with coworkers that I really have grown to appreciate, love, and care for. I don’t care if you think it’s not a real job just because I don’t make more than you. I wake up every morning and go to work and earn a paycheck. I write my blog every other week. That’s real work to me, too. It matters and it makes a difference in others’ lives. And I deserve to be able to write my articles with a clear mind and in a decent environment. I should be able to move forward with my advocacy work, but I keep falling behind because I’m so exhausted and stressed out from everything else going on in my life that could probably be avoided. And school. Grad school is a lot of work. And I bring my books and my laptop to work just so I can get a few moments of clear thinking in because I just never know what life will bring to me elsewhere.

I’m fucking tired. I deserve peace and solitude and respect and love and care and decency and all of those positive things, but my situation is holding me back from that and it needs to change.

I just need energy, strength, courage, and maybe a rich husband.