Life had me like

A lot of the themes I explored in The Light Was Dim, I explored in Life had me like, too. This was the first piece I made about what I was going through in the summer of 2024, leading up to my first solo exhibition.

I was finally aligned with what I felt I should be doing, pursuing my art practice. But around this time, I realized I was running out of money, and I started to confront the reality that I might have to go back to corporate America.

And it wasn't just money. Diving head-first into my art practice let me slow down in a way I never had the chance to in my adult life. That intentional work helped me discover all kinds of things about myself. It was hard for me to identify and regulate my own emotions. It was hard to stay focused on a project long enough to finish it. I often struggled to manage my time, or simply lost track of it. These discoveries pointed to things that had gone unaddressed for so long.

I realized that the structure a corporate job provided by default was something I struggled to maintain on my own. I was working incredibly long days and doing a bunch of things, but not making any real progress along the way. It was the first time I noticed my involuntary attention shifts. They had always been there.

Those shifts actually served me when I worked on a team or inside a larger organization. They let me juggle multiple projects and priorities at once. That worked when I had a team to hand off or delegate unfinished work to. On my own, it meant a lot of open projects, and none of them finished. That was probably the most visible sign, but it was one of many that eventually led to my formal ADHD diagnosis.

I started to feel a compounding pressure, like the universe had my head in a vise grip.