I don’t even know why I’m typing this really, like who cares, but it’s 2am and I’m just staring at this canvas… it’s been BLANK for like, weeks. Maybe a month. I don’t even know what day it is half the time, for real. Just blank. And it’s not even like a little blank, it’s like a BIG blank, you know? Like one of those really expensive ones I saved up for, thinking I was gonna do some AMAZING art on it and now it’s just… mocking me. Like a big white rectangle of my own failure. God, that sounds so dramatic, but it’s true. It IS true. My mom… she moved to that place, the facility, like three months ago? I think? It all blurs together now. It was a whole THING, let me tell you. She didn't wanna go, obviously. She kept saying she was FINE, she could take care of herself, but like, she was leaving the stove on, she fell like twice, and she just… wasn’t herself. It was bad. REAL bad. And I was the one who had to deal with it, you know? My brother lives in another state, my sister just kinda... checked out years ago. So it was me. Always me. And I felt like such a BAD person for even thinking she HAD to go. Like, she’s my mom. My MOM. I should be able to take care of her, right? But I can’t. I just… can’t. I’m barely taking care of myself. I do those little gig jobs, the art commissions, sometimes I drive for that app, sometimes I walk dogs for that other app. It’s never enough, it’s always like scrambling to make rent, scrambling to pay for supplies. Like, if I’m honest, I’m living paycheck to paycheck, but like, the paychecks are like, every two weeks if I’m lucky, or sometimes a month. It’s MESSY. It’s always messy. So when everyone was like, “Oh, your mom needs more care than you can give her,” I just felt like a giant piece of shit. A total FAILURE. Because I know I can’t. I just CAN’T. I barely sleep, I eat ramen noodles like it’s going out of style, and my apartment is a disaster zone. How the HELL am I supposed to take care of someone else? Especially someone who needs like, constant care. It was just… too much. And I hated myself for it. I still do. And now… now she’s there. And it’s like, a relief, I guess? Which makes me feel even WORSE. Like, who gets relieved when their mom goes into a home? That’s like, the most fucked up thing to feel. But I do. I have more time, I guess. More time to do my art. More time to actually FOCUS. And that’s what everyone said, right? “Now you can finally focus on YOUR art, your career.” Like, they think I’m some big shot artist, when I’m really just doing pet portraits and weird abstract stuff for like, twenty bucks a pop. It’s not a career, it’s a HOBBY that sometimes pays for groceries. But I keep trying. I keep trying to sit down and make something. Something REAL. Something important. Because now I have the TIME, right? The mental space. But it’s just… gone. Whatever spark I had, whatever made me want to create, it’s just GONE. Like, POOF. Vanished into thin air. I stare at the canvas and it’s just white. Just EMPTY. Like my brain. I feel like I broke something inside myself, sending her there. Like I traded my creativity for… for what? A little more sleep? A slightly less messy apartment? And I know it’s stupid. It’s probably just stress or something. Everyone says “oh you’re grieving” or whatever, but I don’t feel like I’m grieving. I just feel… numb. And guilty. So much guilt. And now I can’t even do the one thing I was supposed to be good at. The one thing that made me feel like I wasn’t a complete and utter screw-up. It’s just… blank. And I don’t know what to do about it. I really don’t.