Sometimes you just... you wake up and realize you've been holding your breath for twenty years. I’m seventy-six now, and I think maybe I forgot how to exhale. It’s 2:14 in the morning and the blue light from this phone is making my eyes ache, but I can’t stop thinking about the studio... our little collective. You know that feeling when you're in a room full of people you love, but you feel like a ghost? Like if you spoke your real mind, you’d just... evaporate? I don’t know if this counts as a confession, but I feel like I’m disappearing a little more every day. I’ve been a graphic designer since before everything was digital. I remember the smell of rubber cement and the precision of an X-Acto blade... long before the 'undo' button existed. Now I’m the oldest one in the building by a long shot. They call me 'the legend' or 'the matriarch' and it’s meant to be kind, I know it is. But there’s a cost to that title... a sort of SOCIAL TAX you pay to keep your seat at the table. When you’re my age and your bank account is as thin as a sheet of vellum, you can’t afford to be an outcast. You learn to smile when you want to scream. We sit in the shared kitchen, surrounded by all those bright, screen-printed posters about wealth redistribution and dismantling the market... and I just nod. I think maybe I’m a coward. Last Tuesday, Sarah was talking about how all property is theft, and I just kept my head down, clicking away at a font choice. I was thinking about the *incentive structures* and the reality of overhead costs... I’ve seen so many of these little 'utopias' crumble because they didn't understand the basic math of sustainability. I think about the *marginal utility* of our effort and how much we waste on meetings that go nowhere. But I didn't say anything. I just smiled and agreed that the system is broken. You ever feel like you’re wearing a mask that’s started to fuse to your skin? I think it’s called *cognitive dissonance*... but it feels more like a slow, cold weight in my chest. If they knew I think lower taxes could actually help small businesses like ours, or that I find their slogans... well, a bit naive... I’d be gone. They’d find a way to make the workspace 'uncomfortable' for me. They'd talk about 'alignment' and I'd be looking for a new place to plug in my iMac at seventy-six years old. And I need this space. I need the reduced rent they give me because I’m a 'pioneer' of the movement. It’s a transaction I never signed up for, but here I am, trading my integrity for a desk and a heater. I remember this one meeting... we were all sitting on those hard plastic chairs, discussing a new mural for the community garden. Everyone was so fired up about the 'collective good.' I sat there thinking about the *opportunity cost* of the labor they were demanding for free. I wanted to say that people deserve to keep what they earn, that individual effort matters... but the air in the room was so thick with... with a kind of certainty I haven’t felt since I was twenty. I just... I looked at my hands. They’re so spotted and thin now. I didn't want to be the one to ruin the mood. You know that feeling when the truth is right on the tip of your tongue but you swallow it because you’re hungry for a friend? Sometimes you look at the young ones—with their piercings and their absolute, beautiful rage—and you feel such a bittersweet ache. You want to tell them that the world is more complicated than a pamphlet. But then you realize that if you do, you’ll be eating dinner alone for the rest of your life. It’s a very specific kind of loneliness... being surrounded by 'comrades' who don't actually know who you are. I think I’ve spent the last decade perfecting a kind of *performative empathy* just to survive. It's like I'm designing my own life with the wrong dimensions and I can't find the crop tool... It’s funny... I used to be the one on the front lines, years ago. But life happens. You see things fail. You see how people treat money when it isn’t theirs. I’ve developed these... conservative leanings, I suppose... just from watching the world actually turn. But in our circle, that’s a sin. It’s worse than being a 'sellout.' It’s like being a traitor. So I hide my books. I clear my browser history. I make sure my comments on the forums are anonymous... like this one. I am seventy-six years old and I am hiding like a child in the dark. I think maybe I'm just waiting for the clock to run out so I don't have to lie anymore. I don't know if anyone else feels this way but... I think I might be pretending to love the 'cause.' I went to every protest for years. My friends sacrificed everything. And now I'm here, doing the thing I'm supposed to want, and every morning I sit in my car for ten extra minutes because I can't bring myself to walk through those doors and pretend that I don't believe in the free market. It’s EXHAUSTING to pretend you don't care about the bottom line when you’re the one who has to figure out how to pay for the ink. I look at my friends, my dear, angry friends, and I feel like I’m watching a play from the wings. I know all the lines, but I don't believe in the ending anymore. You know that feeling when you realize you’ve traded your voice for a sense of belonging? It’s not a fair trade, but you do it anyway because the alternative is so much colder. I think about leaving... finding a different studio, maybe somewhere less... political. But then I think about the stairs here, and the way the light hits my drafting table at 4 PM, and Sarah bringing me tea when my arthritis flares up. She’s such a good girl. She’d hate me if she knew what I really thought about the 'labor theory of value.' She'd look at me like I was a monster. So I’ll probably just keep nodding. I’ll keep designing those posters with the bold red letters and the fists in the air. I’ll keep my little economic papers tucked away under the floorboards of my mind... I think maybe I’m just tired. I just want to be able to say what I think without losing my home... but I don't think that’s how the world works anymore. Or maybe it never did... I don't know... it’s just so late... and everything feels so heavy... maybe tomorrow I'll find a way to say it... but probably not...