Okay so I'm like… just grading papers. Intro bio, you know? Like, super basic stuff. Mitosis, cellular respiration, Mendelian genetics. And I'm just… BORED. So bored I could scream. And it’s not even a bad job! I mean, it’s a good job. Tenure track, decent pay, healthcare. All the things you’re supposed to want. My parents are SO proud, always going on about “Dr. [My Last Name]” and like, all my friends from college are still hustling, trying to make rent, and here I am, like, comfortably ensconced. Living the dream, right? (Except not.) And it’s 2 AM and I’m just staring at a poorly drawn Punnett square and all I can think about is… sawdust. Like, the smell of it. Pine. Cedar. And the sound of a saw. The really satisfying THUNK when you join two pieces of wood perfectly. My dad, you know? He was a carpenter. Small town guy. And I just… remember being a kid, sitting in his shop. All the tools. The way he’d just… *make* things. With his hands. From nothing. And I used to go with him sometimes, when he had a bigger job. Like, building a deck or remodeling a kitchen. And he’d let me hold the tape measure. Or hand him a nail. And I felt so… helpful. So useful. I mean, I don't even — whatever. It’s just this… *ache*. This persistent, low-level dysphoria I guess? When I’m grading these papers, or prepping a lecture on… whatever. The Krebs cycle. And I just wanna be doing something else. Something tangible. I went home last weekend, actually. And my dad, he’s still got his shop. And I just stood there for a minute, looking at everything. The workbench, all scarred and worn. The smell was still there. And I felt this… almost like an overwhelming sense of loss. For something I never even really *had* myself. Like, a counterfactual life. And I know it’s stupid. It’s totally irrational. I have a PhD! I’m a professor! I’ve worked my ass off for this. To get out of that small town. To be more than… you know. And I AM proud of that. I am. But sometimes, when I’m in a faculty meeting, listening to someone drone on about budget allocations or some new university initiative… I just zone out. And I think about what it would be like to just… go work with my hands. To build something. To see a project from start to finish. And I get this weird, like, almost physiological response. This craving. Is that what it is? A craving? Like I’m missing some essential nutrient or something. My career path, my choices… are they just fundamentally misaligned with my innate disposition? I don’t even know what that means. It just feels like… this. This disconnect. Between what I’m doing, and what I feel like I *should* be doing. And I can’t talk to anyone about it. My parents would be devastated. My colleagues would think I was having some kind of… breakdown. (Which, maybe I am?) But it’s just this thing that keeps coming back. Especially late at night. When I’m alone with these papers. And all I can think about is a hammer in my hand instead of a red pen. And the smell of wood. Is this just… a phase? Or am I just completely… lost? I don’t know. I really don’t know.