Failure fears: You're Not the Only One

Historical fiction, set just after the Civil War, about a woman trying to make a life for herself out here, you know, the grit of it all. …

Is it organic enough? …

you ever just feel that cold pit in your stomach — the one that tells you you’re about to absolutely BOMB something you’ve put your whole damn soul into like you’ve been hustling all week for this… …

I’ve been putting this revitalization project together for MONTHS, poring over spreadsheets after the kids are finally asleep, trying to make sure every single detail is perfect. …

And you start to hear all the doubts, all the little whispers from the people who told you it was a "risky venture," that you "had a good thing going" at your old job. …

i’m tryna propose soon like ring bought everything but my head is just… broken. …

i just signed a mortgage for this house with jack and im like SO SCARED what if we actually CAN'T fix anything and we just wasted like all our money on this old shack...

I'm thirty-nine, almost forty, and I’m in night classes for nursing. …

And I just spent maybe ten minutes, literally, staring at his pill organizer for tomorrow. …

I gotta present this design, this big residential tower, to the senior board next week and honestly, I just feel… flat. …

like it’s not just one or two pills, it’s a whole damn rainbow of bottles like six times a day and he can’t remember any of it. …

) It’s this constant hum in the back of my brain, this low-level dread. …

So I'm sitting here, 2 AM, staring at this damn ring box. …

I'm sitting here, it's 2:17 AM, and I swear I've checked that damn street outside the bakery window like, a hundred times since we opened, just empty, always empty. …

I just gotta get this out man and it’s like midnight (or later probably) and I’m staring at my screen like the whole thing is gonna crash and burn and I’ve put so much into this revitalization… …

A fixer-upper, they called it. …

six months before the family savings are gone. …

Night classes for this nursing degree, after two decades on the factory floor. …

mortgage signed today, the bank lady said congrats, but my brain just keeps looping like, "fixer-upper, fixer-upper," and I'm staring at these mouldy walls thinking, like, we don't even know how to… …

The pill sorter is a battlefield. …