I’m tired.

I’m tired of being unemployed.

I’m tired of shooting off application after application and writing cover letter after cover letter and not getting so much as an email back.

I’m tired of feeling like a guillotine blade is inching down on my head every day that I don’t have a job.

I’m tired of avoiding LinkedIn, of not wanting to see my classmates’ new jobs and internships, of not wanting to read any more pandering fairy tales made up by CEOs who want to seem relatable to minimum wage workers.

I’m tired of feeling like a failure.

I’m tired of feeling like my professors put all the effort in that they did for me to have a fart of a launch into the real world.

I’m tired of the real world.

I’m tired of companies manufacturing a worker shortage via dragging their feet with applications and whining, “No one wants to wooooork anymore!”

I’m tired of landlords and rental companies hogging housing.

I’m tired of an American life that consists of bouncing from one ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ crisis to the next: 9/11, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 financial crash, the Trump presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic, January 6th, and so many mass shootings and police shootings of unarmed black people that I could make trading cards out of them.

I’m tired of a Christian life that consists of trying to steer a spiritual boat around the icebergs of Christian nationalism, homophobia and spiritual abuse.

I’m tired of transparently corrupt politicians–dogs being wagged by lobbyists and corporations, mouthpieces for white supremacy and militia groups, chickenhawks who send other people’s children off to war from the comfort of their cushy office, wealthy nepo babies who cut off free lunches and Social Security because they think it will turn the less fortunate into “welfare queens”–not facing consequences.

I’m tired of living in a world where the most successful people are those who cheat, steal, backstab, exploit and destroy.

I’m tired of corporations that dump oil in the oceans and raze the Amazon gaslighting the populace, telling us to use metal straws and take shorter showers to clean up their mess.

I’m tired of feeling like my life is a time loop, doing the same things day after day.

I’m tired of feeling like nothing will change.

More than anything, I’m tired of being tired.

If you’ve reached the end of this and feel concerned for me, don’t. If you’re like me, you’ve come across something from high school, something you wrote at the height of emotions: a poem about a breakup, a journal entry where you thought high school would never end, music you listened to when your depression seemed inescapable. And while you cringed at it a little, it also made you feel a little better, because those problems that seemed as big as mountains are no more, an afterthought far, far back in the rearview.

I’m hoping this post will be one of those time capsules, something I can come back to 1 or 5 or 10 years and see how far I’ve come.

I’m tired now.

I hope I’ll feel rested in the future.