Its 6:29pm.

Its quiet. Its Friday. Most people have already left to begin their weekend. There's 2 people left in the nearby vicinity and one of them is typing loudly. And there's my fan. Always, my fan. Otherwise, complete silence.

In 30 minutes I'm not going to go to Redeemer's first inner-arts fellowship, meeting at the offices a block over from where I'm sitting right now. Or perhaps I am. But if I don't - its proof positive of the downward spiral of this situation I've landed myself in. I'm in a job that so wears on me, so grinds me down, that it even sucks from me the energy I'd need if I were to aptly seek out something better. Its evil like that.

The fellowship isn't the only thing on the radar. There's other things, and there have been for a while now. I've become jaded by some past opportunities that didn't pan out, so I'm approaching the current ones with a little more realism / down-to-earthness. But the current position still looms like an evil shadow over them all. I know I can't commit the resources necessary to any of the possible outs - I'm unable to effectively exploit the opportunities to the best of my ability - and as such I remain here, stuck in this rut.

Yeah, and you're like..."whaaa?" Sorry, guess I just needed to get that out there. Rewind...Play...

Otherwise, complete silence.

I am exhausted. I have 3 more days worth of work to be done before Monday morning, and there simply will not be that many days between now and then. I'm actually feeling anxious about my weekend because I made the audacious mistake of actually scheduling personal plans to do things besides work. I have some studying I need to do and a wedding to attend. I said no to 8 other things I would have liked to have done tomorrow as well. So I won't be able to work tomorrow. And I don't work on Sundays, period. Not job work, at least. I'm doing enough other types on Sunday that there's no room for any more.

And so Monday morning will come, and I'll be 3 more days behind (making it roughly 150 days behind, I estimate, in total). Oh, the brow beatings I'll take. I'll be berated like I don't stay late every night I walk into this damn building, just trying to catch up. And I'll take it, and I'll smile, and on the inside I'll be thinking about the 10 other things I need to do when I get back to my desk. All this and more just adds to my exhaustion. I'm not even exhausted solely by what has passed - I'm exhausted in advance by the future. I'm not worried about it, mind you. I know its going to happen, I'm just very realistic about it. And so, I'm exhausted.

I have reason to believe that I'm not the only 20-something kid in NYC that feels this way when Friday night rolls around. I know more than a few that go out and try to chemicalize the coming reality of the next week out of their mind. I don't know where they find the energy. I also know more than a few, that like me, go home and simply collapse.

Which is what I will do tonight. I'll go home, and I'll be too tired to cook, clean, talk, write, or even read. I'll even be too tired to be mad with myself that I'm too tired to read. I get that way sometimes, when I resolve to just watch a movie and veg - I get upset with myself for not finding the energy to read. But tonight I won't even have the energy to chasten myself for my sloth.

I was at a lecture last night and one of the speakers made a great point about this Friday-night exhaustion epidemic. He simply asked - if you were to look back, how much of the work that you labored so hard to do in the past 5 days was God's work? How much of it served to bring his kingdom to earth? Have you found your purpose?

I'm not whining. I'm not ranting another poor-me-my-job-stinks. I'm saying that this is the way things are. But I'm not saying that's ok.

Instead, I'm going to Redeemer's inner-arts fellowship. I might not find anything. But at least I'll be looking.

Then I'll go home and collapse.