I don't know if this counts, really. Or if anyone will even understand, but sometimes you just… you get tangled up in something, don't you? Something that feels so intensely personal, even when it isn't. Like, you see a young person, maybe, struggling a bit, and something in your old heart just… latches on. I’ve been watching this podcaster, a college student, sort of, who's quite popular, I suppose. And it’s… I don't know, it feels like I spend hours, sometimes, online, defending him. From all the criticism, you know? The internet is so… *harsh*, isn't it? People say all sorts of things, accuse him of… well, of being many things. And I find myself typing, sometimes at two in the morning, long, rambling rebuttals. Explaining, you know? Why he's actually quite clever, or why that particular comment was taken out of context. Why his intentions, I think, are really quite pure. It’s a peculiar kind of protectiveness, I guess. Like you’d feel for a lifelong best friend. Someone you’ve shared decades with, secrets, quiet understandings. But I’ve never met him. Never even spoken to him, obviously. He's just… this voice, this presence. And it makes me feel a bit silly, really. This… investment. This emotional expenditure. I’m an old woman, you see. I’ve lived a full life, a creative life, often quite difficult, with financial precarity always hovering. So why this sudden, intense… identification? It’s a sort of transference, I suppose. A displacement, maybe, of something from my own past. You remember those moments, don’t you? When you felt misunderstood. When your art, your passion, was picked apart by people who just… didn't *get* it. Who didn't see the sincerity underneath the rough edges. I guess I see a lot of that in him. This young man, earnest, trying to create something, and people just… tearing at him. And I feel this ache, this phantom pain, of being that person again. That young artist, putting myself out there, feeling so exposed. It’s a curious kind of empathy, isn't it? Almost a kind of… vicarious wounding. And I don't know if it’s healthy, really. All this time. All this energy. My hands sometimes ache from typing so much. My eyes get tired. And for what? He doesn’t even know I exist. But sometimes, when I’m scrolling through those comments, seeing him being attacked, I just… I *have* to say something. It’s an impulse, a compulsion, almost. And then, later, I feel a sort of emptiness. A bittersweet longing for… I don't know. For connection, maybe. Or for that feeling, again, of being truly understood, truly seen. Even if it's just for someone else.