I feel like I’m going to SCREAM. I honestly just… I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore, and it’s always this way, isn’t it? This utterly paralyzing rage that just simmers under the surface until it boils over and then it’s just… exhaustion. And the worst part is it’s all my own damn fault, every single bit of it. I’m so furious with myself I could just rip my own hair out, strand by agonizing strand. It’s these damn tax documents. They’ve been sitting there, on the corner of my desk, for MONTHS. Just… a growing, accusing pile of paper, mocking me every time I walk past. And I walk past it a lot, obviously, because it’s my desk, it’s where I work, it’s where I *try* to work. I’m a freelance illustrator, you know? Or at least, that’s what I tell people when they ask what I do, even though lately it feels less like a career and more like a very elaborate way to avoid any real responsibility. Which, I guess, this whole tax situation proves, doesn’t it? The thing is, I know what I need to do. I’m not an idiot. I’ve done my taxes before, every year since I went freelance after college, which feels like a lifetime ago now, even though it’s only been… what, four years? Five? Time gets so blurry out here. Everything does. You’d think living in such a quiet, isolated place would make it easier to focus, wouldn’t you? Fewer distractions, more time to just… get things done. But no. It’s the opposite. It’s like the quiet just amplifies everything else, all the things I’m trying to ignore, all the things that are wrong with me. And every time I sit down at my desk, my eyes just drift to that pile. It’s like a magnet. A heavy, leaden magnet, pulling my attention away from the commissions I *should* be working on. The ones that actually pay the bills, that actually keep me afloat in this tiny, gossipy town where everyone knows if your truck’s making a funny noise or if you haven’t picked up your mail in a week. I’m sure Mrs. Henderson at the post office already has me pegged as "the irresponsible artist who can’t keep her affairs in order." And she’d be right. I try to tell myself it’s not that bad. That I’ll just tackle it tomorrow. Or this weekend. But then the weekend comes, and I find myself driving the hour into the next town just for a change of scenery, just to get away from the accusing glare of those papers. Or I call up Maya and we go for a hike, and I try to forget about it, but it’s always there, in the back of my mind, a dull ache that prevents me from actually enjoying anything. And then I come home, and there it is, still waiting, a little taller, a little more menacing. I guess some of it is just… anger at the system, too, you know? Why does it have to be so complicated? Why does a single person, trying to make a living doing something they love, have to spend hours and hours deciphering arcane forms and obscure regulations? It feels like it’s designed to trip you up, to catch you out, especially if you don’t have some fancy accountant on retainer. Which I definitely do not. I barely have enough money for groceries some weeks. And the interest! Oh god, the penalties and interest that must be accumulating on whatever I owe. That’s what really gets me sometimes, late at night, when I can’t sleep. The thought of how much more money I’m going to have to pay, just because I couldn’t bring myself to open a few envelopes and input some numbers into a spreadsheet. It’s an insane, self-defeating spiral. The anxiety of the task makes me avoid it, and the avoidance makes the task even more anxiety-inducing, and it just… never ends. I just keep digging myself deeper into this hole, and I don’t see a ladder anywhere in sight. And I’m so, so sick of it. So sick of being like this.