i’m filing taxes like always this time of year it’s my job it’s what i do it’s stable it pays the mortgage my parents were thrilled a real accountant a professional you know the kind of success you bring home to the village people ask about your child your daughter the one who got the degree the one who didn’t chase fantasies in america the one who chose responsibility i found my old sketchbook under a pile of statements and receipts the one from high school before university before all the sensible choices i used to draw obsessively like a compulsion almost every page filled with charcoal sketches portraits landscapes figures i was good i was actually good not just for a kid good good enough to get into a good art school i had the acceptance letters the scholarships and i just threw it all away chose the numbers the spreadsheets the predictable path the one everyone approved of the one that made sense now i look at these old drawings and i don’t recognize that person it’s like a different version of me a divergent timeline a what-if that haunts me when i’m supposed to be auditing these damn ledgers i feel this hollow ache like a phantom limb for a life i never lived and i don’t know if it’s regret or just some kind of late-stage identity crisis maybe it’s just pre-midlife ennui or maybe i fucked up big time choosing comfort over whatever that could have been i just don’t know which is worse the knowing or the not knowing