I’m sitting here and it’s like two in the morning and I can’t sleep because my mind is just going and going and I keep thinking about this thing, this secret thing, and I know people are gonna judge me and that’s why it’s anonymous but still it feels… wrong, saying it out loud even here. But I gotta, I guess. I have a tin, a little mint tin, in my desk drawer at work. The one that locks, thank god. And in it, it’s not mints, it’s these little pills. Pain pills. The kind you get from the doctor for, like, when you hurt your back, and I did, once, a long time ago. And I just kept some, you know? Just a few. And now… now they’re there every day. Every single day. For the long shifts. The days when my back hurts, yeah, but also when my head hurts, or my heart hurts, or when I just feel so TIRED and done with everything, and I just need a little… quiet. Just a little quiet in my head so I can get through the endless spreadsheets and the phone calls and the complaints. It’s not like I take a bunch, not really. Just one, sometimes two, when it’s REALLY bad. And it’s not every day, not yet. But it’s enough that I think about it, you know? Like, get to work, unlock the drawer, check the tin. Just to make sure it’s there. Like a little comfort blanket. And I feel so stupid and ashamed even typing this but it helps. It just helps me push through those long, long hours when I feel like I’m gonna snap. Because it’s not just work, it’s everything. It’s my mom calling me three times a day because she’s lonely and she’s getting forgetful, and my kids, they’re grown, but they still need things, big things, money things, and I feel like I gave so much of myself when they were little, you know, being a stay-at-home parent, and I loved it, I did, but then when I came back to work after all those years, it’s like I lost a part of myself, the part that was just *me*, not mom, not wife, just me. And now I’m just… this. And I’m tired. So tired. And I worry, like, what if someone found it? What would they think of me? Mrs. Henderson, the senior admin assistant, always so put together, always with a smile, the one who brings in homemade cookies for everyone. What if they knew about the tin? About the pills? Would they see me different? I feel like we all do that, humans, we put on this show for everyone, this perfectly fine show, and then inside… inside it’s all a mess. And I just wanna be okay. I just wanna feel okay for a little while, every day, so I can keep being the person everyone expects me to be. And the tin helps. And I don’t know what I’d do without it. And I know that’s not good, but it is what it is. And I’m just so worried.