what it gave me is also real. a precise and unromantic understanding of human nature. the choices people make, the dynamics they create, what it looks like when a person refuses to fill their own emptiness, and what it costs the people around them.

i've been back in the netherlands for a few weeks now. i didn't grow up here exactly. i arrived at fourteen, passport in hand, into a language i barely spoke and a culture i didn't recognize. what followed was difficult in ways i won't detail here.

the critic in my head had its usual script, measuring every line and value against an unliveable standard. the thought tightened into a sentence: i’m fucking useless, why am I wasting my time?

the paintings and sculptures behind me no longer feel mine. they belong to a time of effort with no return, years of struggle against something that never opened.