Evenings are different.

Some nights I feel happy, energized, full of anticipation and excitement. Other nights I feel lonely, endlessly uncertain and unsettled, as if something is wrong.

I don't think anything actually is.

I have a home, children, relatives, friends, a job. It's something internal, a kind of insecurity. Maybe I haven't achieved the results I was hoping for. Maybe I haven't progressed as much as I expected of myself. Maybe I haven't received the kind of affirming feedback that tells me I’m heading in the right direction.

Instagram is exhausting.

I've been away from it for years and completely fallen behind. I'm learning, but slowly. The way of creating content doesn't come naturally to me anymore, when the focus is no longer on the visual beauty of the feed and carefully composed images.

The competition is intense. Instagram is full of more and more beautiful products and jewelry. Some of it is so cheap that I can't understand how anything can be produced at that price. And probably it can't be, at least not something designed from the ground up. Jewelry that carries thought, passion, care, and purpose behind it.

It's easy to sink into all of that and conclude that there's no point in even trying.

And yet I try.

Some inner drive and certainty keeps guiding me forward. Even if nothing comes of it. Even if I'm the only one who understands my vision. Even if nothing ever becomes fully realized and everything just floats in a strange kind of ambiguity.

Maybe one day it will be something else.

But for now, this is what it is.

——

It's spring again.

On the roof of the neighboring building, a large hawk-shaped kite flies all day long, making sure the seagulls don't take over. They arrive in April, claiming the yards and parking lots, energetic and full of life. They build nests and get to work.

I don't know why they come here. The lake isn’t even that close. You'd think parking lots, with people constantly moving around, would be an unsafe place to nest.

But something draws them here.

The birch trees already have their small budding leaves. And yet I haven't had any allergy symptoms, which is completely unusual. I don't know why. For years, for decades, it's been the same, symptoms starting in mid-April.

It feels pointless to try to control life too much, when things that have remained stable for decades can suddenly be different one year, and you don't know why.

And at the same time, there's a strong need to control and understand.

It creates a constant contradiction, a kind of battle mode.

What am I protecting myself from, and who am I fighting against?

Who is the enemy?