i just got home from the office and its like 1 am and i cant sleep bc my hands are shaking and i keep thinking what if someone sees this and knows its me i mean i don't even — whatever. i have to say it somewhere bc my wife is asleep and if i tell her she will just worry about the money again like she always does. i started this design internship thing three months ago at 49 years old which is already humiliating enough sitting next to kids who were born when i was already paying a mortgage and i just feel so small all the time. its like being back in high school but i have gray hair and a bad back and i have to ask 22 year olds how to save a file as a vector. today was the weekly meeting at 10:02 am exactly because mark the creative director is never on time and he always makes us wait in those cheap plastic orange chairs there are 14 of them in the room i counted every single one of them while i was sweating through my shirt. he usually walks in and just starts ripping into my layouts before he even sits down and he says stuff like why is this font so old fashioned do you still live in 1995 and everyone laughs and i just stare at the 3 little coffee stains on the rug. i tried to make a joke once about how we used to do things by hand and he just looked at me like i was some kind of fossil and didnt say anything for a whole minute. i had this one poster i did for a client last week and he told me it looked like a funeral parlor ad and he actually took his red pen and just drew a big X across the whole thing while i was standing there holding it. my hands were shaking so bad the paper was rattling and i could hear it in the quiet room. it makes me feel like i made a huge mistake trying to go back to school for this after the factory shut down and now im just a joke to these kids who can do in five minutes what takes me four hours and i just — i don't even know. i keep thinking about how much my tuition cost and how many hours i spend watching tutorials just to have him tell me i dont have an eye for it. anyways the boss comes in today instead of mark and everyone got real quiet and i was looking at the clock on the wall the one with the cracked glass over the number 4 and my heart was just pounding like it does when my dad calls from the home and i know its gonna be bad news about his hip or his meds or whatever. i was waiting for them to say i was fired or that i was too slow or just not cut out for the tech stuff bc i still struggle with the shortcuts on the keyboard sometimes. i was already thinking about how to tell my wife i failed again and how we would pay for my daughters wedding next spring. but then she said mark is leaving for a job in chicago and he starts on monday and he isnt even coming back for his stuff and my whole chest just went... idk how to even say it. it was like someone took a 50 pound bag of cement off my neck that i didnt even know i was carrying. i looked at his desk and saw his stupid expensive black coffee mug and the 3 pens he always lines up and i realized i dont have to see him tomorrow or ever again and i almost started crying right there in front of the college kids. i had to pretend i was sneezing so i could wipe my eyes with my sleeve. my son called me right after to ask if i could help with his car insurance this month bc he’s short and usually i would just get so angry and stressed out bc marks breathing down my neck and i feel like i’m failing at everything but today i just said okay i will figure it out. i don't know why one person leaving makes the air feel different but it does. i walked by marks office and the door was open and i saw the empty chair and i felt like i could finally take a real breath for the first time since august. i even stayed late to finish a project and i didnt feel like someone was mocking me every time i clicked the mouse. i spent the rest of the day just staring at my screen and doing my work and nobody told me i was stupid or slow and i even finished a logo design in 45 minutes which is a record for me. i kept waiting for the catch though like maybe the next person will be worse or maybe i only feel good bc im a bad person for being happy someone lost their job but he didn't lose it he got a better one so its fine right. i mean i hope he’s okay but i also hope i never see his face again as long as i live. i hope he has to sit in a room with 14 orange chairs and wait for someone to tell him his work is garbage. now i’m sitting in the kitchen eating cold pasta at 2:14 am and i’m looking at my school books on the table and thinking about how much debt i have and how my mom needs that new walker and it all feels so heavy still but at least that one guy is gone. i keep thinking about what i’ll do tomorrow morning when i walk in and i don't have to hear him sighing behind me every time i move a box two pixels to the left. he used to count my clicks he actually did that once and said i was inefficient and i should try using my brain instead of my finger. im scared to post this bc what if someone at the firm reads this and sees the part about the orange chairs or the coffee mug and they report me to the boss. i probably shouldnt even be typing this i should be sleeping so i can be sharp for tomorrow but my brain wont shut up. i feel like i'm 51 going on 15 just trying to fit in and not get bullied and it’s so exhausting every single day just to keep my head above water when everyone else seems to be swimming so easily. i just want to finish this degree and get a job where i can sit in peace. whatever i guess it doesnt matter. tomorrow is friday and mark wont be there and i have 4 projects to finish and i just hope i can do them right without someone making me feel like i’m garbage. i really need this job to work out bc if it doesnt i dont know what else i can even do at my age with the kids still needing help and the house falling apart. i just want to be good at something for once without someone — nevermind. i’m just gonna stop now. i have to be up in five hours and i can already hear the neighbors dog barking.