You know when it’s two in the morning and the whole house is finally quiet but you can’t sleep because your brain won’t shut up? You're sitting at the kitchen table with a cold cup of tea and you’re just… tired. Not just regular tired, but bone tired. The kind where your eyes itch and everything feels sort of heavy. You spend all day being the person who fixes stuff. I spend all day wiping my mom's chin and making sure she doesn’t wander out the front door in her slippers. Then my son calls because he’s short on rent again—he's twenty-six for gods sake—and he’s forty miles away and what am I supposed to do? I’m the one who stays. I’m always the one who stays. So you find this little corner of your life, right? This one thing that's just yours. For me it’s the laptop. It’s this story I’ve been typing out for years, I guess. It’s about people who actually go places and do things. People who aren't stuck in a house that smells like lavender bleach and old age. I’ve got nearly four hundred pages now and it’s… I don't know. It might actually be good. Like, really good. I sent a chapter to a friend of a friend who works in publishing and she called me three times in one day. She said it’s a "hit." She said it’s the kind of thing that makes people famous. And that’s when I just sort of stopped. You ever feel like you’re finally holding a winning lottery ticket but you’re too scared to cash it in? Because you know what comes next. If this book actually happens, it’s not just a book. It’s me. It’s my face on a cover. It’s people wanting to talk to me. I’d have to go on those morning shows or do those tours where you sit in a bookstore and people stare at you and ask you questions about your "process" or whatever. God, I can’t even imagine it. I can barely talk to the cashier at the grocery store without getting all flustered. I just want to hide. I want to be invisible. Imagine having to put on real clothes and makeup and act like you have your life together. For what? So I can be away from home for weeks? My mom wouldn't even know where I went. She’d be calling out for me and I’d be in some hotel in Chicago or something. It feels sort of like a betrayal, you know? Like if I succeed, I’m leaving her behind. But then I think about the people who’d see me. They’d see a middle-aged woman who looks tired and probably has dog hair on her sweater. They’d judge. I know they would. They always do. So I just… don't finish it. I have the last two chapters sitting there in my head. I know exactly how it ends. But I won’t type them. I open the file and I just stare at the cursor blinking. Blinking like it’s mocking me. I’ll go and reorganize the spice cabinet instead. Or I’ll spend three hours looking for my mom’s lost hearing aid. Anything to not finish. It’s like if I keep it in the computer, it’s still mine. It’s a secret. Once it’s done, it belongs to everyone else. And I don’t have anything left to give anyone else. I’m all tapped out. It’s just so STUPID. Most people would kill for this, right? They’d give anything to have a career at my age. To be something other than "Mom" or "The Daughter." But I’m terrified. I’m terrified that if I get what I want, I’ll lose the only peace I have left. Which is just sitting in the dark by myself. If I’m a "bestseller" then I have to be ON all the time. I have to perform. I’ve been performing my whole life for my family, pretending I’m not exhausted, pretending I don’t mind giving up my weekends. I can’t do it for strangers too. I just can't. Maybe I’m just making excuses. Maybe the book actually sucks and I’m just telling myself it’s good so I have something to feel special about. I don’t know. I’m probably just crazy. You get like that when you don’t talk to adults for more than ten minutes a day. You start imagining things. But that woman from the publishing place, she sounded so sure. She sounded like she wanted to own a piece of me. And I don’t have any pieces left to sell. I’m just… I’m done. The sun is starting to come up now. I can hear the birds and I know in about twenty minutes my mom is going to start banging on her headboard because she wants her oatmeal. My back hurts from this crappy chair. I should probably delete the whole file. Just hit 'select all' and 'delete' and go back to being the person who makes the oatmeal and pays the bills. It would be easier. So much easier than being someone people actually look at. You ever feel like you’re your own worst enemy? Like you’re holding the door shut from the inside? That’s me. Every single night. I guess I’ll just go make the coffee. My son will probably call later to complain about his boss and I’ll listen and I’ll say "that’s nice honey" and I’ll keep my mouth shut about the fact that I could’ve been someone. I could’ve been a name on a shelf. But I’m just a ghost in my own house. And honestly? Sometimes that feels safer. Even if it’s killing me. It’s just easier to stay small. To stay quiet. To stay right here where nobody can see how much I’m shaking. I just can't do it. I'm not that person. I'm just not.