the ache between my shoulder blades, it's a permanent resident now, a souvenir from years of leaning into the screen, even when the rest of me is finally still, finally given permission to drift. and then the guilt creeps in, a cold finger tracing the spine, for every minute the world kept spinning without my frantic hands pushing it along. my mind, it still tries to write an apology for the hours spent just... existing, like there's a ledger somewhere keeping tabs on my worth, and sleeping is a deficit. it's ridiculous, i know, but the tremor in my chest, that quick catch of breath, it's not logical, it's just this deep, ingrained habit of earning every single second of peace. i can tell myself it's summer, that this is the point, that i left big tech precisely for this space, but the old wiring still sparks, still whispers about senior project managers and targets and what happens if you DON'T. and that hum in the back of my skull, it’s not from a phantom meeting anymore, it’s just the sound of a brain trying to unlearn a whole lifetime of constant production, and it’s EXHAUSTING.