I guess I just scrolled too deep tonight, huh. It’s like 2 AM and I’m staring at another baby announcement. This one’s from Sarah, who used to sit two desks over in art school. Her kid is, what, the fifth one this month? All these perfect little newborns, little suburban houses with big kitchens, the whole thing. And here I am. My apartment is… fine. It’s a studio, technically, in a building that kinda smells like old ramen and despair. The rent went up again, obviously. I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to chase down an invoice that's been "in progress" for three weeks. Freelance life, man. It’s all feast or famine, and lately, it’s felt pretty famine-y. Like, remember when we all swore we’d be disrupting industries and living in cool lofts and making ART? Yeah, about that. I saw a picture of Sarah’s new house – a detached, like, three-bedroom place with a yard and everything. My current view is the brick wall of the building next door. And I’m not even mad, not really. It’s just… flat. Like, I should probably feel more upset, or jealous, or something. But it’s just this dull thud in my chest. Another one. Oh. Okay. Cool. I mean, I like my work, mostly. When I get it. The freedom is cool, I guess. No one telling me what to do, which is also sometimes a problem because no one’s telling me what to do. My last big gig was for a tech startup, designing icons for an app that probably won’t even launch. They paid, eventually. But it’s not exactly a steady paycheck with benefits. Health insurance? LOL. Retirement fund? What’s that. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to just… clock in. To have a 401k. To know what next month’s rent is definitely going to be covered. And then I think about getting stuck, being bored, all that. It’s a trade-off, right? This freedom for… everything else. All the life milestones everyone else is hitting. I just… keep scrolling. Maybe there’ll be a picture of someone else’s cat. Or a really good meme. Something.