I quit the company I'd worked at for eight years. Not fired. Not after a fight. I just couldn't hold on anymore.
Every morning I'd stop in front of the office for five minutes — not because I didn't want to go in, but because I didn't have the strength to. Three hundred meters from the subway station to the building. That stretch grew heavier each day. My coworkers didn't know. I didn't know either — how close to the edge I'd been.
The Next Morning, 9 AM
I woke at 9 the next morning — eight years of muscle memory. I didn't have to do anything, but I couldn't rest. I was anxious. I got up and made coffee; my hands shook. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what I was allowed not to do.
I rummaged through a drawer. Not looking for anything. Just needing to hold something. That's when I found an old Bible. A graduation gift from a senior at church. Still in its original wrapping, untouched for ten years. Why I picked it up then — I can't say.
I Opened It at Random
I opened it at random. Jeremiah 29. When I read verse 11 — I cried. I cried at a Bible I'd owned for a decade and never opened.
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
This verse didn't change me. It gave me time. Time to breathe. Time to stop hating myself. Time to pause the question — was I the broken one, for not lasting the eight years?
Six Months Later
It's been six months since I quit. I haven't taken another job. I haven't decided yet. But every morning, I write that verse again. I type it out in VerseWrite. It takes forty seconds. For those forty seconds, I am still someone with a future.
The anxiety hasn't left. Some nights I still wake at 4 AM. But now I reach for the Bible first. I read, I write, I lie back down. That's all it is. And also — it isn't only that.
Not lasting was not the mistake. Eight years was long enough. And for what came next — Jeremiah 29:11 had the answer ready.