I Looked at the Rain in the Streetlight and Felt Like an Absolute Failure

Dear Delyara, It is 5:30 AM, and the rain is falling in straight, heavy sheets through the beam of the main security spotlight outside. I am sitting here with my head in my hands, looking at the wet concrete, feeling a sense of absolute, crushing failure that I can’t seem to shake. I am thirty years old, I have a university degree, I have a brilliant family back home, and I am sitting in a cold box in England checking padlocks for twelve hours a night while my dreams sit on a laptop screen gathering digital dust. The ice under my feet feels so thin tonight, Delyara. I am terrified that the life I want—the legacy, the gallery exhibitions, the financial freedom—is just a beautiful lie I tell myself so I don't look at the uniform and break down completely. The day shift is coming, and I have to clear my desk, but the dark inside my head isn't shifting at all.