I don’t even know why I’m typing this really, just… it’s 2 am again and I’m drenched, literally soaking the sheets, for the third time this week. Fifty, man, fifty. Used to be I’d wake up a little stiff, maybe a crick in my neck from sleeping wrong, but this? This is different. My shirt is sticking to my back and the chill from the AC makes it worse, but if I turn it off, I just feel like I’m suffocating. Every night it’s the same goddamn thing, like someone just dumped a bucket of ice water over me, but it’s just sweat. My own sweat. And then my brain just kicks into overdrive, thinking about the quarterly reports, thinking about what Miller said about my presentation yesterday, how I could’ve done better, could’ve pushed harder. It’s never enough, is it? Never. And then the cycle starts again, you know? Can’t sleep, can’t turn off the noise in my head, and then the alarm goes off a few hours later and I’m just dragging ass through the day. Coffee, Red Bull, whatever I can get my hands on to just feel human. I’m snapping at the kids, I’m zoning out in meetings, I’m making stupid mistakes that I shouldn’t be making at this point in my career. Like yesterday, I almost sent an email to the whole team with a typo in the subject line, a real doozy too, would’ve been embarrassing as hell. Used to be I was sharp, you know? Always on it, always ahead of the curve, that’s how I got here. From nothing, from that tiny apartment where every dollar counted, where you had to scrape and fight for every single thing. And now… now I’m here, supposed to be living the dream, the big corner office and the fat paycheck, and I just feel like a zombie. Sometimes I think about what my old man would say, seeing me like this. He worked his ass off in that factory until he couldn't anymore, never complained, just got on with it. He’d probably tell me to suck it up, get some sleep, stop whining. And he’d be right, probably. But it’s not that easy. This isn’t a cold, it’s not something you just shake off. It’s like something inside me is just… running on empty, but it won’t shut down. And I can’t afford to shut down. Not now. Not when everything depends on it, on me performing, on me being the guy who always has it together. If I don't, what then? What happens to everything I built? It’s just… a lot. And I’m so tired, man, I’m just so damn tired.