I am staring at this damn screen until my retinas feel like they’ve been rubbed with sandpaper. It’s 4:14 AM. The house is dead silent except for the rhythmic, mechanical wheeze of the oxygen concentrator in the next room. Thrum, hiss. Thrum, hiss. That is the soundtrack of my life now. I should have been asleep five hours ago. I know the price I’m going to pay when Arthur wakes up at six and needs his first round of pills and a steady hand to help him to the commode. I’ll be a walking corpse, snapping at him, dropping the spoon, hating myself. But I can’t stop. I’m clicking through another "Year in Review" portfolio from some kid in London who isn't even old enough to remember a world before the internet. I’ve been a designer for forty-five years. I remember the smell of Letraset and the physical weight of a layout board. I stayed in this game because it was the only thing that belonged to ME, not the kids, not the house, and certainly not the slow, agonizing decline of my husband. But looking at these portfolios—this sleek, effortless, minimalist garbage—it makes me want to put my fist through the monitor. It’s not even that the work is better. It’s that they have the TIME. They have the space to think. They aren't interrupted every twenty minutes by a bell or a moan or the smell of something burning in the kitchen because I forgot I was boiling eggs. I’m scrolling through this girl’s site—she’s twenty-six, she calls herself a "Visual Storyteller"—and I feel this hot, thick knot of inadequacy rising in my throat. She’s got case studies for boutique hotels in Tulum. I’m currently "freelancing" for a local landscaping company that hasn't paid me for the last three invoices. I’m sitting here in a stained cardigan, surrounded by pill organizers and medical bills, trying to figure out how she got that specific grain effect on her headers. It’s pathetic. I’m seventy years old and I’m jealous of a child. Yeah, I said it. FIGHT ME. I am bitter and I am tired and I am allowed to be both. Last week, Arthur looked at the screen while I was trying to finish a vector map and asked why I was "playing on the computer" again. Playing. I’ve supported us on this "playing" for decades when his pension wasn't enough. I’ve squeezed my entire identity into the two-hour windows when he’s napping or watching the news. My brain used to be a sharp, dangerous tool. Now it feels like it’s being eaten away by the sheer, grinding boredom of caregiving. I look at these successful peers—people half my age—and I don't see talent. I see freedom. I see the ability to sleep until noon and drink coffee while it’s actually hot. The guilt is the worst part. Not the guilt over the work, but the guilt over the sleep. I know that in two hours, I have to be "on." I have to be the patient, loving wife who doesn't mind that her life has been reduced to measuring out fluids and checking for bedsores. If I’m exhausted, I’m dangerous. If I’m exhausted, I lose my temper. And yet here I am, clicking "Next Project," "Next Project," "Next Project," like a goddamn addict. I’m looking for something to prove I’m still relevant, but all I find is proof that the world moved on while I was busy changing bandages. I’m so sick of being the "strong" one. The one who handles the insurance. The one who coordinates the doctors. The one who keeps the house running while my own soul is starving to death. My back aches, my eyes are stinging, and the blue light is making my headache turn into a migraine. I look at a photo of this London designer in her studio—plants everywhere, huge windows, a dog that probably cost more than my car—and I want to scream. I want to tear the wallpaper off the walls. I want to be her. I want to go back and choose differently. Every time I see a "Project Lead" title, I feel a physical pain in my chest. I could have been that. I WAS that. But then mom got sick, and then Arthur had the first stroke, and suddenly I was the only one left to hold the bag. Nobody asks me about my work anymore. They ask how he’s doing. They ask if he’s eating. They look at my computer like it’s a hobby, like I’m knitting a sweater I’ll never finish. It’s not a hobby. It’s the last thread connecting me to the person I used to be before I became a full-time servant. The sun is starting to grey out the edges of the curtains now. The birds are starting that cheerful, annoying chirping that signals the end of my "me" time. My heart is racing because I’ve wasted the night. I’ve spent five hours looking at things I can’t have and work I’ll never do. I feel small. I feel invisible. I feel like a ghost haunting my own office. I’m going to close this laptop, walk into that bedroom, and put on the mask again. I’ll smile and I’ll be "the rock" and I’ll ignore the fact that I’m crumbling into dust. I hate this. I hate how much I care about a career that doesn't want me anymore. I hate that I’m seventy and still feel like a failure because I don't have a "polished brand identity." It’s all so much NONSENSE. But I’ll be back here tomorrow night. I know I will. I’ll be right here in the dark, scrolling and hating and wishing for a life that doesn't involve the smell of bleach and the sound of someone else’s breath. Go ahead and tell me I should be grateful. Tell me I’m a saint. I’ll tell you exactly where you can shove it.