It’s 2 AM and I’m staring at the ceiling again. This whole thing with the competition… I thought it would be different. I really did. I put in the hours, the actual sweat, sketching concepts until my fingers cramped, reviewing every last detail until my eyes blurred. It was pure, unadulterated focus, just like… well, just like it used to be. And then we won. And now I’m leading this team, this team of men who have been designing buildings since before I was even born, and all I can feel is this churning knot in my stomach. They’re supposed to be celebrating me, I guess. Patting me on the back for bringing in the biggest project this firm has seen in years. But every meeting, every single one, feels like I’m back in basic, being sized up by a new drill sergeant who thinks I haven’t earned my stripes. The questions, the thinly veiled challenges, the way they *look* at me when I lay out a directive… like I’m a child playing with Lego, not the person who just beat out half the industry. And I hear myself, calm and collected, explaining the rationale, quoting precedents, pushing back with the exact same firmness I learned when someone’s life actually depended on my ability to follow through. But inside, I’m just screaming. At them, at myself for letting this get to me. Am I the only one who feels this way? Like achieving the thing you’ve been aiming for, the thing everyone said you *should* want, just opens up a whole new battlefront you didn’t even know existed? Because I thought once I proved myself, once I showed them I was capable, that would be it. That the fight would be over. But it feels like it’s only just begun, and the worst part is, I’m so damn tired of fighting. I’m exhausted. And I just want to know if anyone else, after all the striving, all the pushing, just ends up feeling… hollow. Like victory just tastes like ash.