So I’m sitting here at 2 in the morning and the only thing moving in this house is the little blinky line on my screen. You know the one? That stupid cursor that just waits for you to do something amazing and creative and... nothing. I haven’t actually MADE anything in like three weeks. Like really made it. I just move boxes around on the screen and hope nobody notices I’m just recycling old ideas from 2012. Am I the only one who feels like they’re just... done? Like the well is dry and there isn't even mud left at the bottom? I had lunch with Sarah and Jen today and I told them the hustle is GREAT. I actually used that word. "The hustle." God I hate myself. I was all like, oh it's so busy, I’m drowning in work, living the dream right? And they looked at me with those eyes like they were jealous because they’re still stuck in those gray cubicles with middle managers breathing down there necks. And I just kept smiling and nodding and talking about my "creative flow" while secretly thinking about how I spent four hours this morning staring at a blank canvas in Illustraitor until my eyes started watering. It’s like... I used to love this. I remember being twenty-five and staying up all night because I HAD to get this logo right, because it mattered. Now? I look at a font choice and I want to scream. It all looks the same. I’m fifty-two years old and I’m still picking out colors for people who don't even care, and I don't care either, but I have to pretend I do because if I don't then who am I? Just a middle-aged lady in a home office with a cat and a lot of expensive software I don't want to open. And then there’s my mom. She called three times today while I was "working" and I just let it ring because I couldn't handle her asking me for the tenth time how to turn on her iPad. It makes me feel like such a jerk, you know? She’s getting older and she’s lonely and here I am, "the successful artist daughter," and I’m literally sitting in the dark just... EXISTING. My kids are gone, they’re off doing there own things in the city, and they think Mom is this cool independent boss lady. If they saw me right now they’d be so worried. Or maybe they wouldn't? Maybe they’d just be embarrassed that I’m still trying to be "hip" in a young persons game. Does anyone else feel like they’re just wearing a mask that’s getting too heavy to hold up? I see these twenty-somethings on LinkedIn talking about "passion" and I want to throw my coffee at the wall. I don't have passion. I have a mortgage and a car payment and a back that hurts if I sit too long. I try to click and drag a shape and my hand just feels heavy. Like lead. I used to think I was an artist but maybe I was just... young? Maybe creativity is just something you run out of, like milk in the fridge. Last week a client—this real young guy, probably the age of my son—he sent me an email asking for something "edgy and fresh." I just stared at those words for an hour. Edgy. Fresh. I looked in the mirror and saw the wrinkles around my mouth and I just started laughing. Not like a fun laugh, but like a crazy person laugh. I ended up just copying a template I found online and changing the green to a slightly different green. He loved it. He said I "really got the vision." I felt like a TOTAL fraud. I am a fraud. I’m scared that if I stop pretending, everything will just fall apart. Like if I admit to my friends that I actually HATE opening my laptop now, then I’m just... an old woman with no job. My husband thinks I’m "crushing it" because I stay in here for ten hours a day. He doesn't know I’m mostly just scrolling through old photos of when we were younger or playing that stupid marble game on my phone just to feel like I’m accomplishing SOMETHING. Anything. Is this just what happens? Do you just reach a point where you’re tired of being "creative" but you’ve built your whole life around it so you’re stuck? I look at that white screen and it feels like it’s mocking me. It’s so bright and I’m just... so tired. I don't want to "hustle." I want to go to sleep for a year and wake up when I don't have to be "on" anymore. But then I think, what would I even do? I don't know how to be anything else. Anyone else out there just faking the whole thing and hoping you don't get caught? Please tell me I’m not the only one staring at the blinking light.