You know that feeling when you're thirty-eight and you're finally doing what the adults do but it feels like you're wearing a costume that's two sizes too small and you're just waiting for the seams to pop... I don't know if this makes sense but I've spent my whole life trying to be an artist and now I'm a junior marketing executive which is a title that feels like a joke I'm not in on and I think I just wanted one week where I wasn't the guy checking his balance before buying a loaf of bread. Sometimes you just get so tired of being the person who says 'maybe next time' or 'I’m just gonna stay in' because you can’t even afford the subway ride to the bar and you see your friends booking these villas in Tulum and talking about the *aesthetic* of the local architecture and you just want to be part of that world for a second. I went to one of those places with the neon signs and the bulletproof glass and the air inside smelled like old paper and desperation but the woman behind the counter didn't even look at me when she handed over the paperwork and I signed for a loan that has an interest rate that should probably be illegal but I didn't care because I had this stack of cash and a plan to tell everyone I'd finally made it. I told them all at dinner that I got this HUGE performance bonus for the winter campaign and I think I sounded convincing because I used words like *synergy* and *optimization* and they all cheered and someone said 'it's about time they recognized your value' and I just sat there feeling completely hollow while I ordered the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu. The trip was beautiful in that way things are when you’re paying for them with money you don't actually have and we spent all this time taking photos of the turquoise water and the ephemeral light at sunset and I kept saying 'don’t worry about the tip, I’ve got it' because that’s what a guy with a bonus does. One night we were sitting on the beach and my friend Sarah looked at me and said 'you look so much less stressed now that you've got some stability' and I just nodded and smiled but I was thinking about the interest compounding every hour and how I still have blue oil paint under my fingernails from a life I’m trying to bury because it didn't pay the rent. I don't know if anyone else feels this way but it's like I paid three thousand dollars to buy a memory of a person I’m not even sure I like very much and now I'm back at my desk and the fluorescent lights are humming in that high-pitched way that makes your teeth ache and the emails are piling up. I have to choose between paying the electric bill or the minimum on the loan this month and I think maybe I should be panicking or CRYING or something but I’m just...