Changing My Mind About My Future

It is a well known fact that big four, public accounting firms have significant turnover, especially during the first 2-5 years. Accounting firms are also well known for driving their staff to "burn out".
I have fallen under this predicament. I don't remember the last time I actually liked my job, had a single day off, worked less than 60 hours in one week, didn't have the frightened feeling that "it's never going to end", relaxed for more than 12 hours, went more than 3 hours without complaining about work, actually cooked a meal (as opposed to re-heating leftovers, or nuking a frozen dinner), felt well rested, didn't feel, liked my manager or partner.... I could go on, but I'll spare you.
I know it's busy season, and I know everyone is working hard, but my situation is a bit different than most. I have 6 busy season client. 6. All but one is brand new to me. The one that is not brand new to me is a single audit, for which, I worked on one single audit program last year. This year, there are FOUR single audit programs, TWO of which have never been done before. I know this probably doesn't mean much to you, but it's not a good situation.
In the past 5 weeks, 3 times, I've had a manager or partner come out to the client on the last day or second to last day to review, and discover that there are a few areas that have not been audited, which have never been audited, that should have been audited and need to be done in the few hours remaining at the client. Of course it's impossible. Everyone knows it's impossible. But I still get emails and phone calls from the manager and partner where they express their "concern" about my hours and hard work and they would like to discuss it with me. I finally get a call from my manager who basically says she's concerned, because she can't figure out why I would be working so hard and eating up so much of the budget. When I listed the reasons (which I have kept a list of), my manager pretty much ignored my list and told me that I needed to work on my time management skills. ,........ My time management skills. I work the better part of 12 - 16 hours day. My manager works about 9-10 hours a day, and is on flex time so she doesn't work Fridays or weekends, except for the occasional email on her trio. She likes to come in on Thursdays on the last day of field work to review work and tell us what is lacking and point out the areas that have never been audited before, but have to be audited this year. Then she leaves around 6 or 7 to go home to her family. I ask her if she's going to review the other binder. She says, "I guess I can take it with me". I say, "Do you want to courier it out to us tomorrow" (so that we can work on those review notes as will on our last day?) And she says "No, I'll bring it to you when I come out to the next client (the single audit that has 4 programs to audit - Believe when I say that's unheard of) on Tuesday". After giving my old friend, my manager, a death stare at this comment, and after she ignores me and leaves, I stay for the next 4 hours (never mind that I only got 3 hours of sleep the night before because I was working) trying to figure out how we (me, my first year staff (started in January) and my intern) are going to complete all this new work in one day.
So, it's not been the most enjoyable time of my life. In fact I've been so miserable, that I actually dislike myself for who I'm becoming. I complain all the time. I'm so stressed out, I think I've lost 10 pounds since October, I'm in the worst shape of my life. I don't like my job at all. My dad and I are fighting all the time because he 1. Doesn't like seeing me so negative all the time, and 2. Doesn't think I'm giving work a "chance".

To add to all of this, my sister and her husband have had another two (actually 3) possible adoptions. As of right now, none of them have worked out. On Friday, they found out about twin boys that were born premature in January, due in March, and one was ready to go home immediately. They didn't get them. Then next we won't hear about until the end of the week. He is 3 months old and has been living in foster care all that time. Keep the mother in your prayers so that the Lord might guide her in the right direction, which ever way that would be.

So, I've re-evaluated my future plans. Originally, I wanted to stay at KPMG until I'd been manager for a few years, and then get a job at a not-for-profit organization as a controller or some other accounting/finance position. I've now decided:
1. I don't think I want to work her for another year, let alone the 4 I would need for my plan,
2. I don't think I want to work in accounting anymore, I don't like it now, and I don't know if I've ever really liked it
3. I need to take a career placement test to figure out what I'm best suited for, as I don't have any idea at this point.
4. Have I just wasted the last 5 years of my life pursuing a degree, certification, job, that was totally wrong for me to begin with?

I don't know what to do, but I think I need to take some action.....as soon as I have on full day, 24 hours, off from work. It's coming (I think). Come on April 7th!!!!!! I think (as long as my jobs don't roll into that weekend, which there is a STRONG possibility they will) I may have that day off. Otherwise, I may demand that I get April 8th off. Just one Sunday afternoon that I don't have to rush off to the office.

Oh, and in all this craziness, I actually met a guy at a party that I was at for 1 1/2 hours (I came straight from the office at 10 PM on a Saturday night) who became very interested in me and asked for my number and if he could take me out. I told him "In theory, yes, but in reality, it's not going to happen." 3 weeks later (last night) we went on a first date. He seems to be a very nice, polite guy, with very little personality or sense of humor. At the end of the date, I said "Thanks, I had a good time, sorry it took so long to plan the date, but work has been so crazy." he said "It was totally worth the wait."......Was he on the same date that I was on? How could he have said that. It wasn't a bad date, but it was totally void of any kind of connection, interest, flirting, humor, fun...." Not bad, just boring. So, he calls me Sunday night to see how my Sunday was. Nice guy. I have no interest in him and I'm way to busy to just date casually with someone I can't see ANY future in.
So, that is my life. As crazy and interesting as it is.
I still remember how to laugh, smile, sing, and hope. As long as I can still do that, I guess I'm still Gretchen and I'm still sane (but I've definitely wavered on that one).

Much love to all..........