The neon blur of the 80th floor

Dear Delyara, I’m twenty-eight, corporate finance, living on cold cold cold espresso and Adderall. I used to paint. Real, thick oil canvases that smelled like turpentine and turpentine-soaked dreams back in Chicago. Now? I build presentation decks for venture capitalists who buy automated logistics warehouses. It’s 3:00 AM, my eyes are bleeding from the Excel grids, and the glowing blue skyline of Manhattan outside my glass wall looks exactly like a heart monitor flatlining. I made three hundred thousand dollars this year, and I feel like an absolute corpse. I haven't touched a paintbrush in fourteen months. My fingers are locked in a permanent mouse-click cramp, and the creative kid I used to be is lying dead somewhere at the bottom of a spreadsheet.