Tears Unfallen

I don't think words can adequately convey feelings in their entire depth and focus. Yet sometimes, I still feel compelled to try...


My job has ups and downs. This week is a down. In the last 48+ hours, I have:
- wanted to hit someone
- nearly screamed more than once
- felt like if breathing were voluntary, I'd just stop
- been too exhausted to do anything I might enjoy
- cursed more than I probably have in the last six months
- said "I don't know" so many times I've lost track
- ached desperately to cry
- laughed giddily - of the near-insane, overwhelmed sort rather than of any joy

I've also experienced a moment of serenity. The tragedy of it was I realized it and knew it to be fleeting.

I could say I've been stressed. That's entirely true, but doesn't really do justice to how I've felt.

There's pressure from a board member through a manager, unto me to accomplish replacement of some eighteen computers quickly.
But we're also getting into the meat of planning our phone system upgrade.
And we're at the beginning of our circulation software upgrade (which shouldn't actually require much of my attention, except *gasp* people are due on-site next week and we're just finding out now that workstations in that department are inadequate for the new software in spite of being over their recommended specs).
And the newsroom picked yesterday to move half a dozen people (and their hardware) around.
And the front desk personnel are still learning how to use a scanner and Photoshop for ads.
And several printer problems are coming up.
And Windows updates restarted process machines that needed to be logged in.
And documents sent to the managing editor wouldn't open in his version of Word.
And our advertising manager has been having software problems that the vendor insists is hardware-related.
And now we need to order a new server for the multimedia component of the advertising software, which wasn't made clear anytime in the last eight months.

So when someone comes to me with something ELSE, I sort of want to throttle them. I worked late last night. I may be putting time in this weekend, or working late the next couple nights - that all depends on what progress I can make and where things look to be.

But what's the worst part? What really makes these days bad?

I can't leave it behind. I get home exhausted. I bowed out of offline gaming last night because of it. I don't have the drive or focus to participate in WoW dungeon runs that guildmates are so eager for, or to initiate any sort of roleplaying on a MUCK. I can barely manage to socialize a little and putter around until I just call it a night.

And thus, without any balance to all the stress of work, that's all my day was. These are bad days because there's no good in them, no real enjoyment.

I'd call it depressing, but that's inaccurate. I'm not depressed. I'm too frustrated and tired in other ways to be depressed.