I just… I feel so terrible, and I know it’s my fault, really, but it wasn’t meant to be mean, it was just a moment, you know? Like a tiny thing, but it got HUGE in my head and now I can’t stop thinking about it, and it feels like a really big deal, but it probably isn’t to anyone else, but it is to me. Because I saw my daughter today, my oldest, she’s 28 now and she’s an artist, and a really good one, I mean she works so hard and her stuff is… it’s just different. Not like mine, you know? Mine was always more… I don’t know, accessible. But hers is her own thing, and that’s what’s important, right? She brought over this new painting and she was so excited, practically buzzing, and she set it up in the living room and it was… well, it was something. Very abstract, and lots of bold colors but also like, almost angry lines, and it just didn't speak to me, and I just stood there, and she was looking at me, waiting, and I could feel her waiting, and I used to be an art critic, you know? A pretty good one, too, back in the day, before… well, before everything changed and I had to get a real job, a steady one, because kids need steady, and art doesn't pay the bills, not really, not for most of us anyway. But I remembered how to look, how to find the meaning, and I was looking and looking at her painting and I just… I couldn’t find it. And I just stood there and she was still looking at me, and I knew she wanted me to say something profound, something encouraging and insightful, like I used to say to all those other artists, the ones whose work I understood, and she looked so hopeful, and I just… I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t say it was beautiful or amazing or anything like that because it just wasn’t, not to me, and I know that sounds awful but it’s the truth, and I just couldn’t force it out. So I just nodded. Just a polite, confused nod, which I know is probably worse than saying nothing, or saying something mean, because it was just so empty. And her face just fell, and she tried to pretend it didn’t, but I saw it. That little flicker of disappointment, and she just mumbled something about it being a "work in progress" and she took it down and put it back in her car, and I just let her. I didn’t even try to explain. And now I’m sitting here, and it’s like 2 AM, and I can’t sleep because I keep seeing her face, that little flicker, and I know I messed up. I just didn’t know what to say, and maybe it’s because her art is just so… outside of what I know, what I understand, and maybe that’s good, but it makes me feel like an outsider myself, like I’m not even her mother anymore in that way, the way I always wanted to be. The one who understood her, who saw her. And I just… I don’t know what to do about it now. She probably thinks I don’t get her, or that I think her work is bad, which isn’t true, I mean I don’t even— whatever. But it just felt so big, that moment, and it felt like I failed her somehow, and I feel so guilty. Like I took something from her, and I can’t put it back. And maybe she’s just better off without me trying to comment on her art anyway, because what do I know anymore, really? What’s my place in all of this. What was my place ever.