What should I do with myself?

So I've been in the same job for almost 12 years. It stole the last of my 20's and my entire 30's. I'll be 40 in about 27 days.  I can't believe it. What I took as a foot-in-the-door job is still my job. I have various reasons I am still here.  1. It allowed me time to have 2 kids and the freedom to not take a job home with me. 2. It is safe. 3. I have good people here. 4. My parents taught me to be loyal to an employer and it will pay off, you will climb the ladder because people will see you as dependable with a good work ethic.  5. I didn't want to be seen as a job hopper.

I have to try and remember that although in hindsight these reasons look shoddy if you want to have a flourishing career and climb the professional ladder, I did what I thought was best for myself at the time.  However, that doesn't help me today when I am completely disenchanted with my day-to-day work life, and I have ample time to sit and contemplate all of the things I have done wrong career-wise, and how other will see this "career" path I have been on. Because it hasn't really been a path. It has been a holding pattern with pay and insurance.

Monkey Mind, pg. 152: "Idleness is as much Anxiety's plaything as the devil'.s" #truth.

As my years in my current position have increased, so has my down time. Am I just too efficient at what I do? Have I streamlined everything to the point that I made this idle time myself? Doesn't matter, really.  I am where I am. I am on the internet daily combing websites for job postings. Today I looked up "Best jobs for people with anxiety." Hey, it told me to become a writer and start with a blog.  I'm on it.

I really want to look into being a teacher because I love kids, and it might could happen through a program in my state that allows those with higher ed degrees to step into a classroom without a teaching certificate. I passed the middle school social science test required and have the appropriate degrees.  However, they have to be willing to take a risk on someone who has never been in a classroom.  I am praying someone will.

Idleness is killing me slowly but surely. I sit and think about all I have done wrong. What has led me to sit in this room with the walls closing in. I even hung a picture of Jigsaw from the Saw movies on my bulletin board in my office. Because that is how I feel. That I am going to have to cut off an arm or a leg to get out of this place.  Someone help me get out of this place. I NEED to keep my brain busy. I NEED some problems to solve or people to direct. I NEED to quit cycling in my mind all that I have done wrong and how I will never get out of this hole. I NEED emotional comforting, but somehow that never comes. It's like my brain NEEDS a hug, but that isn't physically possible.

For as many past appointments as I can remember, my therapists asks me, "So, how are you?" And my response is always, "Tired." Because I am so very, very tired of thinking and fighting with myself internally.  I want to quit work. I want to stay at home and clean my house, and enjoy each day by going outside and moving in life. I want to get out from behind a desk and LIVE.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

That quote haunts me day after day. I don't want to lie on my death bed thinking I have not lived. And yet, that is what I feel here every day. Sitting at this desk. Within these walls. Missing the days. The seasons. The life. A life. MY LIFE.