I spent forty-eight hours on that sponge. Forty-eight hours. I used the expensive butter, the kind that comes in the gold foil, because I thought it would make me feel like I belonged there. I’m forty-two years old and I’m standing in a community center gym with flour under my fingernails and a check engine light on in the car that’s parked three blocks away because I couldn't afford the metered parking right out front. I’m standing there, and I’m looking at my cake, and it looks... fine. It looks fine. Reasons why I entered this stupid thing: 1. the prize money is five hundred bucks and that’s exactly what I owe the dentist 2. I wanted to prove I could finish something that wasn't a "deliverable" 3. a desperate need to be seen as something other than a "freelance content strategist" 4. I’m tired of being invisible. Just tired. The woman at the table next to me had this—this monolith of a cake. It was tall, like, architectural. She had these edible lace things and sugar flowers that looked more real than the ones in my window box at home. Her hands were clean. Perfectly clean. She didn't have the "hustle" eyes. She looked like she had health insurance. She looked like she had a 401k that was actually growing, not just a dusty account with forty-three dollars in it from a job I had in 2012. Every time I looked at her cake, I felt my own shrinking. Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. The judges came around and they gave me a little plastic fork. They told me to try a piece of my own work. My lemon curd was sharp, exactly how I like it, but I couldn't even swallow it. It felt like dry sand in my throat. I was too busy staring at the way the light hit the pearlescent dust on her fondant. It was so smooth. No lumps. No "rustic" mistakes. Just pure, unadulterated perfection. It made me want to go home and delete my LinkedIn profile. It made me want to delete my whole life. I’m sitting there nodding at people, saying "oh thank you" and "it’s a hobby, realy," but my brain is just a loop of the unpaid invoice from that boutique agency in Seattle. They’re three weeks late. Three weeks. I’m calculating how many cakes I’d have to sell to cover the rent if the gig economy finally collapses under its own weight. The juxtaposition of my amateurish efforts against her magnum opus was just... a lot. It was too much. It was nothing at all. I should be angry. I should be jealous or inspired or something. But I’m just flat. I’m at zero. I watched her take the blue ribbon and I didn't even blink. I just thought about how she probably doesn't have to use her kitchen table as an office. She probably has a desk. A real desk made of solid wood. I looked at my "Honorable Mention" ribbon and it looked like a piece of trash. Total garbage. Just garbage. What I did when I got home: - put the cake in the fridge without even covering it - checked my email for the fourteenth time today - sat on the floor and stared at the baseboards - realized I forgot to buy milk - didn't care I’m forty-two. I’m forty-two and I’m losing sleep over sugar and flour because I have nothing else that feels solid. My whole life is a series of "pivots" and "contracts" and "side-hustles." I just wanted one thing to be beautiful. One thing. But her cake was there, and it was better, and now I can't even stand the smell of lemons. The smell is everywhere. In the curtains, in my hair, in the back of my throat. It’s just lemons. Just lemons, all the way down. The sun is going to come up in a few hours and I have to finish a 2,000-word blog post for a client who will probably ghost me for a month. I’ll drink some lukewarm coffee and I’ll pretend the cake isn't sitting in the fridge, drying out. I’ll pretend I don't remember the way that lace looked. It was so delicate. So fragile. Like if you breathed on it, it would shatter. I wish I could shatter like that. Instead I’m just here. Still here. Always here.