I gotta get this off my chest. I know it sounds stupid, and I feel really dumb even typing it out, especially since I'm anonymous here. But it’s been bugging me. I'm a fitness instructor, right? The kind who's all "clean eating" and "discipline" and "you gotta EARN it." I'm 52, have grown kids who barely call, and my parents are getting... frail. So yeah, I try to stay on top of things, try to be that person everyone expects me to be. The strong one. The one who never slips up. But here's the thing. Every single day, after I finish my last grueling session, after I’ve pushed some poor soul until they’re seeing stars, after I’ve preached about whole foods and sugar being poison... I go to my car. And I have this gym bag, you know? The big one, with all the straps and pockets. And way, way at the bottom, under my extra socks and a leaky water bottle, I have a box of those little chocolate snack cakes. You know the kind. With the cream filling. They’re usually a little squashed. And I eat one. Every time. In the car. Alone. It’s like, a ritual. I tear the wrapper open, careful not to get crumbs on my expensive workout clothes, and I just... devour it. It’s usually cold, almost always. And it tastes like pure, unadulterated shame, mixed with something else. Something... relieving. Like a little secret rebellion. Is that weird? Does anyone else do stuff like this? Hide a piece of themselves away because it doesn't fit the image? I guess it's like we all have these different versions of ourselves, don't we? The one we show the world, the one our kids see, the one our elderly parents need to see. And then there's the messy, crumb-covered one sitting in a car, hunched over a squishy snack cake, feeling totally exposed and totally invisible all at once. Like, who even is that person? Is she pathetic? Is she just... human? I used to think I knew who I was. Now, sometimes, I feel like I'm just playing a part, and the only real part is the one that craves cheap sugar in the dark. It feels... small. And big, all at the same time. And I think about it a lot. Too much, probably. What does it all even mean?