I remember the gut-wrenching dread every Sunday evening, watching the light fade, knowing the email avalanche was already building in my inbox, waiting to bury me alive by Monday morning. The Sunday dread was a physical weight, a slow-motion tightening in my chest that started around 3 PM, an invisible countdown to the moment the mask had to go back on. It felt like I was perpetually bracing for impact, even when there was no obvious threat, just the hum of the office machinery waiting to grind me down again. The dread wasn't just Sunday for me, it was a constant, low-level hum under everything, a background noise I only noticed when it briefly quieted, like the world holding its breath. It was the feeling of being perpetually 'on call' for everyone else's needs, my own desires a faint whisper I increasingly ignored until I couldn't even hear them anymore.