just this peculiar hum that started in my fingertips, not exactly a chill but a tingle, when the colors on the new canvas just… clicked, almost like they were breathing back at me, and that surge of something akin to joy, it was immediate, intense, and then the counter-surge, the way my scalp tightened, like my whole system bracing for the other shoe to drop, because this feeling, this sense of everything aligning, it’s still such a foreign taste, you know, peace, a foreign taste, i’ve been so used to the constant becoming that this state of simply being, of creating something just because it feels right in my hands, it triggers this protective reflex, this deep, ancient part of me that thinks happiness is a trap, a temporary illusion before the inevitable upheaval, and even though i’m trying to embrace this new iteration, this person who actually LIKES things and lets them settle a bit, the urge to disrupt it, to dye my hair another shocking color just to prove i can still control the chaos, to pack up for portland on a whim, it’s always there, a little buzz behind my ears, an echo of the self that believed everything had to be a fight, every good moment a precursor to struggle, and my parents wouldn't get it, they'd just see another hobby, another thing i haven't figured out a way to monetize or make 'stable,' but this isn't about stability, it’s about a very different kind of freedom.