I am sitting here in the dark and the blue light of my phone is the only thing I can see but my brain won't shut off because I did it again today and I feel like such a liar. I've been a data analyst for over thirty years and you'd think that would be enough but no it's not enough anymore especially not in this city where every new hire is twenty-four and drinks those green juices and talks about "disruption" and I'm just trying to pay off the last bit of the mortgage so I can finally stop but I can't stop because my boss thinks I'm this high-energy leader in the making even though I'm nearly sixty and just want to be left alone with my SQL queries. Every morning at 9:15 we have the stand-up and I have to stand there in that glass-walled room and I literally feel my face muscles tightening into this wide grin that isn't mine and I start talking loud and fast like I'm some kind of morning talk show host. "Morning guys! How’s the energy today!" and I want to throw up just saying it but I see Dave—he's my manager and he's like thirty-two and wears those slim-fit suits—I see him nodding and writing things down in his little leather notebook and I know he's thinking "finally Bill is showing some initiative" but it's not initiative it's just me being terrified that if I'm just the quiet guy who does the spreadsheets they'll realize they can hire three kids for what they pay me and I'll be out on the street before I can even collect social security. I'm good at the numbers and I like the numbers because they don't talk back and they don't expect you to be "on" all the time but lately the numbers aren't enough for them they want a personality and I've spent my whole life not really having one of those at work. I mean I don't even—whatever. Today I was explaining the Q3 churn rates and I found myself doing this weird little hand gesture thing like I was a magician or something trying to keep everyone's eyes on me and not on the fact that my hands were shaking under the table because I'm just so tired of being this person who loves everything and thinks everything is EXCITING and GREAT when really it's just a bunch of rows in a database that don't mean anything to me once I walk out that door. Then we went to lunch at that place on 5th where it's eighteen dollars for a salad and I had to keep it up the whole time laughing at stories about hiking trips in Peru and music festivals I've never heard of and I felt like a spy or an actor who forgot to take the costume off after the play ended. I looked in the bathroom mirror and I didn't recognize the guy looking back because he had this sparkle in his eye that I had to fake by staring at the bright lights for too long and it just felt so wrong like I was betraying every quiet moment I've ever had in my life just to keep a seat at a table where I don't even like the conversation. I think about my dad and how he worked at the plant and he never had to be "bubbly" he just did his job and came home and sat in his chair and that was that but now if you aren't the loudest person in the room you're invisible and I can't afford to be invisible yet not with the taxes in this city and the way everything keeps getting more expensive every single week. I'm fifty-eight years old and I'm playing pretend like a toddler so that a guy half my age thinks I'm "leadership material" and it makes me feel like I’ve wasted all these years of experience just to end up being a clown for a paycheck. It’s pathetic... it really is. My jaw actually hurts tonight from all the smiling and my throat is scratchy from using that higher pitch I use when I'm being "approachable" and "vibrant" and I just hate it so much but I don't know how to stop now because if I show up tomorrow and I'm just me—the quiet me who likes silence and doesn't have a funny story about his weekend—then everyone will ask what's wrong or if I'm having a mid-life crisis or if I'm "not a culture fit" and that's the phrase they use before they show you the door and I just need five more years just five more years of this performance. I feel like I missed the chance to be successful just by being good at what I do and I don't know when the rules changed or why I didn't see it coming but here I am at 2am staring at the ceiling wondering if anyone at that office actually knows me or if they'd even like the real me which they probably wouldn't because the real me is boring and likes to sit in the park and watch birds and doesn't think a pivot table is "thrilling" or "game-changing" it's just work and I wish it could just be work again. I feel like I'm lying to them but mostly I feel like I'm lying to myself and it’s a heavy kind of feeling that sits right in the middle of my chest and won't go away no matter how much I tell myself it's for the 401k or for the house.