The Exhaustion of Running from Yourself

I’ve applied for so many jobs over the past several months that I genuinely couldn’t give you an accurate number anymore.

Nearly every day it’s been the same routine: scroll listings, tweak resumes, write cover letters, hit submit, and hope maybe this one will finally be the thing that changes everything. Sometimes I’d even get an interview, and every single time my phone rang or an email popped up, there was this tiny flicker of hope that rose up in me like, “Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the door God’s finally opening.”

And then… nothing.

Or a rejection. Or silence. Or “We’ve decided to move forward with another candidate.”

At this point, the old saying, “When God closes a door, He opens a window,” feels less comforting and more like a cosmic prank. Because from where I’m sitting, it feels like all the doors are bolted shut, the windows are boarded up, and the whole damn house is somehow on fire.

And before anyone jumps in with, “Everything happens for a reason,” I know. I do. At least intellectually. I still believe God is there somewhere in the middle of all of this. I think. But lately my prayers have become significantly less inspirational and significantly more, “Hey… what exactly are we doing here?”

Because I started this year believing it was going to be the year I finally thrived, and here we are days shy of six months in and instead, it feels like I’ve spent most of it barely surviving. Which, if you read my 2025 Year in Review, pretty much sums up that entire year too.

So really… what is happening to me?

That’s not rhetorical, by the way. I’m genuinely asking.

Because I am tired in a way that sleep does not fix. Mostly because sleep itself has become hard to come by. It’s difficult to rest when your mind is constantly spinning — bills, jobs, responsibilities, pain, rejection, fear, uncertainty. Even in the middle of the night my brain apparently believes we are in some kind of nonstop crisis management simulation.

Financially, this past year has been tight. Like, “maxed out credit cards, borrowing money, and praying everything somehow stretches one more month” tight. And before anybody says, “Well at least you figured it out,” yes. We did. Because what other choice do people really have? You figure it out because the bills don’t magically stop showing up just because you’re overwhelmed or because you’ve run out of sick time and every day you miss is without pay.

That’s why I’m always saying, “Everything will be fine because everything always is.” It just sucks super bad in the meantime.

And I think part of what’s making all of this harder is that I’m carrying around a level of grief I don’t fully know what to do with anymore. Not just grief over financial stress or career frustration, or the ache of missing my mom and sisters, but grief over my body too.

Ever since my accident, I have not physically been the teacher or director I once was. My back hurts all the time. Constantly. And it makes me angry in a way that’s difficult to explain unless you’ve experienced chronic pain yourself. I miss being able to jump up and demonstrate things for my students. I miss physically creating alongside them instead of trying to verbally explain what used to live naturally in my body. I miss feeling capable.

And there’s something uniquely heartbreaking about grieving a version of yourself that’s still technically alive.

Then there’s the emotional side of all of this: the constant proving, the constant striving, the feeling that no matter how much I work, produce, direct, teach, inspire, survive, reinvent, hustle, sacrifice, bleed, mentor, create, or endure… it still never quite feels like enough.

And maybe the hardest realization in all of this is that I’m starting to wonder if I’ve spent most of my life trying to earn my worth through suffering.

Not consciously, obviously. Nobody wakes up and says, “You know what sounds fun? Emotionally over-functioning until burnout becomes a personality trait.” But when you grow up hearing you’re “hateful,” “awful,” and “horrible” every day, it does something to you. It wires something deep into your nervous system that says if I stop hustling, producing, proving, helping, sacrificing, over-performing, and carrying everything for everyone… I lose value.

And that… that’s a hard thing to sit with.

Because maybe the reason I was chasing the next job, the next opportunity, the next escape hatch, the next version of myself wasn’t because the grass is greener somewhere else. Maybe I was desperate to finally feel okay here. Maybe I wasn’t just chasing a new job. Maybe I was trying to find relief from myself.

And honestly? I don’t fully know what to do with that realization yet.

Because if I’m really honest, I don’t think I’m just exhausted. I’m desperately lonely.

My mom is gone. My sisters live across the country. And there are moments lately where I feel emotionally stranded in my own life. I try to explain all of this to people sometimes, but I don’t even know if I fully understand it myself. I just know there’s this heaviness I can’t seem to shake. Like I’m constantly carrying around emotional wet cement.

And spiritually? Well... that’s its own mess entirely.

I still believe in God. I do. But lately my prayers have looked a lot less like faithful devotion and a lot more like exhausted confusion. Sometimes I don’t even ask for anything anymore because part of me thinks, “What’s the point?”

And before anybody panics reading that, let me be clear: I am not suicidal. Not even close! I want to live. I want joy. I want peace. I want a future. I want more life, not less. I’m just tired of hurting. There’s a difference.

I think sometimes people assume faith looks confident and victorious and unwavering, but honestly? Some seasons of faith look more like sitting in your car in silence asking God if He still remembers your address.

And maybe that’s why this season has felt so disorienting to me. Because I genuinely thought by now things would feel lighter. Not perfect. Not easy. Just… lighter.

Instead, I feel trapped living in the “and” between gratitude and grief.

Because there are good things in my life. Beautiful things. People I love deeply. Students who matter to me. Moments of joy and laughter and purpose that break through all the noise. But there’s also this constant undercurrent of survival running beneath everything, and I hate that.

I hate how hard everything feels all the time. I hate that rest feels irresponsible or lazy. I hate that peace feels temporary. I hate that my nervous system doesn’t seem to know how to stop bracing for impact. I hate that I can’t seem to convince myself that who I am is enough without constantly proving it.

And maybe that’s the lesson buried somewhere underneath all of this. Not that life suddenly gets easier… but maybe my worth was never supposed to be earned through suffering in the first place.

Maybe thriving doesn’t look like finally arriving at some magical pain-free destination where everything suddenly goes my way.

Maybe thriving is quieter than that.

Maybe it looks like continuing anyway. Showing up anyway. Laughing when you can. Resting when possible. Trusting God even when He feels silent. Choosing hope without certainty. Continuing the pursuit of happiness without the guarantee of it.

Maybe I’m not stuck.

Maybe I’m planted.

Honestly, I don’t know.

I still don’t fully understand what God is trying to teach me in this season. Maybe someday I will. Maybe someday I’ll look back and everything will suddenly make sense in hindsight like one of those inspirational testimonies people give in church that makes everybody cry and nod.

Or maybe life is just harder and messier than we want it to be sometimes.

I don’t know.

What I do know is this:

I’m done applying for jobs.

Not because everything is suddenly okay. Not because I’ve found peace. Not because I’ve stopped feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, or afraid. Honestly, I still feel most of those things pretty regularly.

But somewhere in the middle of all of this grief and striving and spiritual exhaustion, I think I’ve finally accepted something I’ve been fighting for a very long time:

I’m a drama teacher.

And a damn good one at that.

Even if I’m not the same teacher or director I was before my accident. Even if my body limits me now in ways that still infuriate me. Even if there’s grief in knowing I may never physically perform the way I once did again. Even if part of me is still mourning the version of myself that existed before pain became a permanent roommate.

That grief is real. And I don’t think pretending otherwise helps anybody.

But I also know this: despite everything, I still get to spend my life doing theatre every single day. And for now… that has to be enough.

Maybe this isn’t me “settling.” Maybe this isn’t me “giving up.” Maybe this is surrender.

Maybe I really am planted here for a reason, even if I still don’t fully understand what that reason is yet. And by damn… maybe instead of spending all my energy trying to escape where I’m planted, I need to start asking God to teach me how to bloom here instead.

I don’t know what happens next. I still have questions. I still have grief. I still have nights where my mind spins itself into exhaustion. I still have moments where the future feels terrifying.

But I’m still here.

Still trying. Still hoping. Still praying. Still teaching. Still creating. Still showing up. Still hoping that maybe someday life will feel a little lighter than it does right now.

And maybe, for now, that’s enough.