I'm sitting in the dark with a cold cup of coffee and the baby monitor is glowing with the green-tinted outline of a child who depends on me for literally everything, and all I can think about is how I’ve managed to fail every single person who ever took a bet on me. It’s 2:14 am. The silence in this house is heavy, like it’s got its own physical mass... you can feel it pressing against your eardrums. We tell ourselves that parenthood is the ultimate "becoming," but sometimes it feels more like a slow erasure. A sanding down of the edges until there’s nothing left to snag on. I look at my hands and they don’t look like an artist’s hands anymore. They’re just utility tools. Scrubber of floors, wiper of noses, maker of sandwiches. My parents are back in that drafty house with the plastic on the furniture because they spent every single cent they ever scraped together from those double shifts at the mill to send me to that expensive university. They thought they were buying a doctor. They thought they were buying security for the bloodline, a way out of the dirt and the grease. And I used that money—their sweat, their literal physical deterioration—to study *light*. To study how shadows fall across a face. I remember my dad’s face when I told him I wasn't going to take the MCAT. He didn't scream. He just got very quiet and looked at his boots... those old, salt-stained work boots he wore for twelve years. He just said, "Okay, mija," and the way he said it felt like he was watching a ship sink from the shore. He hasn't looked at me the same way since. It’s been a decade of that look. Why are humans like this? Why do we harbor these GRAND DELUSIONS that we can transcend our origins through "passion"? We’re just animals trying to survive, yet we trick ourselves into thinking we need to leave a mark. A legacy. I thought my paintings would be my legacy. Instead, my legacy is a sink full of crusty oatmeal bowls and a bank account that I’m too scared to look at. I feel like a thief. I stole their retirement and turned it into canvases that are currently stacked in the garage, warping from the humidity because I can't afford a climate-controlled space. I lied to them without saying a word. I let them believe I was going to be the "success story" while I was really just indulging in the luxury of being *fanciful* on their dime. Yesterday my mom called and asked if I was "still doing the little drawings." She calls them drawings. She doesn't understand the difference between charcoal and graphite, between a hobby and a soul-crushing compulsion. She told me her back was acting up again but she’s taking extra shifts at the laundry because everything is so expensive now. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her I’m miserable, that I hate being stuck in this house, that I miss the smell of linseed oil so much it physically hurts in my chest... but how do you tell someone who literally broke their body for you that you’re unhappy with the "easy life" they provided? It’s obscene. It’s an *ego trip* of the highest order. I just said, "Yes, Ma, I'm still drawing," and let her believe I'm happy. We’re all just performing versions of ourselves for the people we love, aren't we? I put on the "happy mother" mask when my husband comes home from his real job. I put on the "successful daughter" mask when I visit home and pretend the gallery show went better than it did. But underneath... there’s this *atrophy*. It’s like my brain is turning into mush from the repetition of the days. Brush teeth, change diaper, fold laundry, stare at the wall. I see a beautiful sunset and instead of feeling inspired, I just feel resentful that I don't have the energy to capture it. The paints are dry. The brushes are stiff. I am a ghost haunting my own life, and the worst part is, I chose this. I chose the art, which led to the debt, which led to the need for "stability," which led to this suburban purgatory where I'm too tired to even be a person anymore. I think about the money sometimes. That specific number—seventy-four thousand dollars. That’s what it cost for me to learn how to see the world differently, only to end up in a place where I can't look at anything for too long without crying. If I had just been a nurse, or a tech, or anything that produced a tangible result... they wouldn't have to work until they die. I could have bought them a house. I could have been the savior. Instead, I’m just a disappointment with a nice vocabulary and a bunch of half-finished sketches of a life I’m not living. I'm a waste of space and potential... just a parasite who forgot that someone has to pay for the dream. There’s this word in Spanish—*desengaño*. It’s more than just disappointment. It’s the stripping away of illusions. It’s the moment you realize the world isn't what you thought it was, and you can never go back to the lie. I’m living in the *desengaño* now. I look at my kid sleeping and I feel this terrifying weight because I know I’ll probably do the same thing to them. I’ll pour everything I have into them and hope they don't turn out like me. I'll pray they choose something boring. Something safe. Something that doesn't require them to hollow out their parents' lives to pay for a degree that hangs in a hallway next to a diaper genie. My husband thinks I'm just "tired." Everyone is "tired." But it’s not sleep I need. It’s a complete overhaul of the last fifteen years. I want to rip the skin off and start over, but you can’t un-spend a life savings. You can’t un-break a parent’s back. You just sit in the dark at 2am and listen to the house creak and realize that maybe the "real" you died a long time ago in a studio apartment in the city, and this person sitting here is just the leftover wreckage... just a series of choices that didn't pan out... and the light is coming up soon and I have to get up and pretend to be a mother and a daughter and a functioning human again... and I don't know if I have the strength to put the mask back on today... it's getting too heavy...