Empty Tank

My tank is on empty. I’m emotionally exhausted and mentally fried. I’m trying not to be a bummer, but my options this week were honesty or just skipping a week. I’ve published at least once a week since April 7, 2023.

I have faithfully written despite how I felt, week after week, for three years. If I had a good excuse, I guess this week would be the one, but I’m here spilling my guts again to the handful of you who show up each week and remind me that my voice matters.

This season feels like death by a thousand cuts. There have been a few catalyst moments that pushed me past the tipping point, but each thing on its own seems too absurd to cause this much stress.

I fear that by writing how I feel this week, and every week, you’ll think less of me. I also worry that I’ll lose the little audience I have built here because these weekly posts haven’t been very upbeat lately.

I’ve spent much of my adult life in the service of others. I served my country, I served God’s people, and currently I serve veterans for the federal government. I pour from a leaking cistern of altruism, and lately nothing seems to replenish me.

I feel emptied and adrift. I’ve prayed for purpose. I sometimes wish God would light a bush on fire or make an animal talk to me or something. I’m not good at nuance. I’m even worse at discerning direction when that spark of divinity within me feels like it has been quenched.

I yelled at the steering wheel with tears in my eyes yesterday, pleading with God for some sign he’s not done with me. I punched my dashboard at the silence I heard bouncing back at me. Faith and God are a mystery to me, but I still cling to faith even when it makes no sense.

The matrix of things I love and things that pay well has never seemed in alignment. I wish I had some easy answer or some solution to work toward. I’m so burned out it’s hard for me to know where to look. It’s not so much that God isn’t speaking, but maybe it’s that I’m so tired and broken that I can’t hear him anymore.

Maybe I traded purpose for a paycheck a while ago, or maybe this season is teaching me long-suffering. Who the hell knows? I promise I won’t allow myself to stay stuck in this place. I know I’ll eventually get the rest I so desperately need. Stick around and watch things get better with me.

Tell me about a time you felt stuck. How did you overcome it?

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Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Bethania, North Carolina. His work has appeared in Dead Reckoning Collective, The Havok Journal, Reptiles Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, and other outlets, and he directed Hammer Down, a documentary about his 2005 deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with Alpha Battery 5-113th of the North Carolina Army National Guard. For The Havok Journal, he often writes essays and reflections about war memory, veteran life, the outdoors, and everyday experience. You can find his books, collected works, and social media at www.stanlakecreates.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.