I don't know if this even counts as a confession, maybe it's more like... a worry. I'm almost 60, and I’ve spent most of my life trying to make a living, you know? I wanted to be an artist, I painted a lot in my twenties, but it just never really paid the bills. So I got a regular job, and then another, and then another, always just enough to keep things going. My wife, bless her heart, she always encouraged me, even when I just wanted to paint for myself. And we always made it work, even when money was tight, like when our old Ford Focus needed new tires last year. But now, with retirement looming, I find myself thinking about what I wanted to do and what I actually did. And I don’t know. I feel like maybe I missed something big. And this isn't even the weird part. My youngest, he's a junior associate at one of those big law firms, super high-pressure. He called me last week, probably around 11:30 at night, just chatting, and he said he was working sixty-hour weeks, sometimes more. But then he said he felt so ENERGIZED by it. And I thought, that's great! My son is doing well, making a good living, seems happy. But then he said he couldn't even focus on a single page of text anymore, just kind of skimming everything. And that part… that felt off. I didn’t say anything, of course. He’s an adult, he’s got his own life. But it stuck with me. Am I the only one who hears something like that and gets this weird knot in their stomach? Like, is he actually happy, or is he just… saying what he thinks he should say? And then I think about myself, all those years I just kept my head down, doing whatever job came along so we could pay for groceries and that one art class I took in my forties. Did I ever really feel energized, or was I just telling myself I was fine? I don't know. I guess I just want to understand if anyone else looks back and wonders if they were telling themselves a story that wasn't quite true, or if maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill. It's probably nothing. I just think about his face when he said it, even over the phone, and it seemed… a little too bright, maybe. I don’t know.