You know that feeling when you're sifting through the numbers, the cold hard proof of someone else’s vibrant life, and a quiet sort of ache settles in your chest, like a persistent little thrum just under your ribs? Sometimes it's when you’re looking at the expenditures for framing – archival glass, acid-free mats, things you never could’ve afforded for your own pieces. Or the insurance policies for canvases that will fetch more than a decade of your wages. I remember auditing a gallery, years ago now, the kind with soaring ceilings and light that made even the dust motes look like tiny, dancing stars. And there, amongst the ledgers, the invoices for crating and shipping, was a name. Someone from art school. The one who always had the best brushes, the imported pigments. And then, there were her paintings, hanging RIGHT THERE. BIG ones. The kind that demand attention, that pull you in. And you just… pause. It’s a peculiar kind of desolation, isn't it? Not a sharp, sudden blow, but a slow seep, like water finding its way through a crack in the foundation. You remember the smell of turpentine and linseed oil from your own studio apartment (if you could even call it that, just a corner really, crammed between the kitchen and the lumpy sofa). You remember the frantic, joyful hours before the scholarship evaporated, before the numbers on the bank statement were too stark to ignore. Tuition wasn't the only cost, you see. There was the cost of living, of canvases, of the special lightbulbs that didn't distort the color. All those pragmatic, undeniable weights that pressed down until the last fragile tendrils of artistic ambition just… withered. You tell yourself it was the responsible choice, the only choice. And it was, truly. We lived paycheck to paycheck, always. Had to keep the roof over their heads. But then you see those paintings. And you feel that flicker, that phantom itch in your fingertips, like they remember the cool glide of paint across canvas. And you wonder, just for a moment, if your hands, these hands that have spent forty years balancing books and tallying figures, might have been capable of something… more. Something that could have hung in those bright, echoing halls. It’s not regret, exactly. Not anymore. It’s more like a quiet observation. A diagnostic curiosity, perhaps. The way you might note a symptom in a patient file – a chronic, low-grade lament for a life unlived. A path chosen, yes, but not without its indelible, if barely perceptible, scarring. And the light catches the dust motes again, dancing. Still dancing.