For the most part, this week has been a blur of business and exhaustion. The beginning of last week started off well...I had three days off in a row and got to relax a bit. I had a fun time bowling with Gary and the gang, but staying out so late began nearly a week of sleep depravation. Day after day I ended up waking up in the middle of the night and having a very hard time getting back to sleep, up until the day before yesterday when I got almost no sleep at all.

I've also had a pretty full work schedule. My hours have been cut back so much lately that I was getting used to working only a few days a week and having more time to work on my projects, but lately hours have picked up and pulling full shifts for five days in a row while being so exhausted just about broke my spirit. I finally caved last night and took some sleeping pills and ended up sleeping about 11 hours. At least I can think straight again, now that I'm no longer in zombie-mode.

Things at work seem to be getting progressively negative. Everyone is fed up with the BS corporate keeps dishing out, continuously cutting hour hours while expecting us to do more work than we've ever had before. We keep failing out audits because we're so behind and the pressure is intense. There was very little teamwork and open communication to begin with, and now everyone is so irritable that the dissension between departments is palpable. Everyone wants to shove the burden onto someone else- some other department. Some employee with lower seniority that they can use and then forget about.

I keep trying to be a shining light in the midst of such darkness, keeping a positive, encouraging attitude, but lately it has really been getting me down and I've found myself joining in with all the complaining and sulking. For a while it seemed that another job opportunity might be opening up, but now it looks like that might fall apart before it even gets started. I just don't know how much more of these insane schedules, ridiculous demands and pre-riotous coworkers I can stand...is there any way to make the situation better without just up and quitting? I really don't want to quit without securing another job first...it's next to impossible to find jobs here right now, even crappy ones.

So I've been feeling rather depressed...The house has become a mess, seeing how the week has blurred by, and I've barely made any progress on my art project. I'm lucky if I get to spend a few hours with my husband one day a week...he's working 12 hour shifts almost every day and it's wearing the both of us down. I'm having a hard time keeping my chin up and remembering that none of this stuff is THAT important...that my spiritual goals are at the forefront of my agenda, and I can practice them anywhere, doing anything.

Mostly I'm just very tired. I'm physically tired, mentally tired, spiritually drained. I feel like I've been bludgeoned by an entire team of psychotic baseball players...the hits just keep coming. I really, REALLY want to go home...and I'm having a hard time keeping that from being the main focus of my thoughts. I feel guilty, wanting to leave when being here is such a privilege, when so many others wanted to come and weren't able to.  I end up despising myself for being unhappy, but there isn't a button I can push to instantly be cheerful. It's not like I WANT to be so down...no matter how much I try to rationalize and talk myself out of it, though, I still feel more homesick every day.

I find myself feeling like a fool...I feel like I bit off more than I could chew in coming here. I had all these plans for what I was going to do to save the world, and I tried to bring all my powers with me to help, but all it's done is made me so sensitive to my environment that I'm in a constant state of agitation and ill health. My deepest, darkest, greatest fear is that when I finally go back they'll say "We TOLD you you couldn't do all that stuff, but you wouldn't listen! Now look. You FAILED. Way to go. We should have let somebody else go instead of you."

I realize this is an irrational fear...that such a degree of judgment isn't the hallmark of higher densities, but it seems like the more I try to convince myself otherwise, the stronger the thought grows in my head. This self-judgment is really bringing me down, but I can't find a way to climb out of it. I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything...even "light-holding." If my heart is all black with depression and despair, how can the Creator's light shine through? No matter how many times other people tell me I'm a wonderful person they're glad to know, I can't see myself as anything but a pathetic washout who tried to run with the big dogs and got trampled.

To anyone reading this, I really do apologize for the whininess. These funks usually lift eventually...if only I could stay up instead of waiting in trepidation for the next plummet.