My dreams of becoming a "proper" animator were probably dashed begininning in October of 2018. This is when I caught mono, ultimately becoming chronically ill from it. The abuses permitted in and typical of the animation industry felt like something I was able to handle before that. When I was "healthy," I would work self-imposed 18-20 hour days, anything to complete my vision in time for a deadline. After developing Dysautonomia, my ability to continue to work on sheer force of will shriveled up and died. My exhaustion won out. I was no longer able to do things just because I wanted to do them; my body had imposed limits. Trying to betray those limits would only lead to intolerably poor work and days-long energy crashes; I now had to obey an arbitrary set of rules that seemed to change without warning. Before that, what I wanted to do after college seemed so clear-cut. I would graduate, I would get whatever grunt-work job at whatever animation studio I could manage, and I'd tough it out until I made a name for myself. I knew those jobs meant crunch work, absurd overtime and sleeping, eating, and working at the studio; when it comes to oversaturated creative "dream jobs," whoever can't handle the pressure will just be replaced by someone who can, and couple years ago I spontaneously found myself transformed from someone who can into someone who can't. Ever since then that cursed question "what are you going to do after you graduate?" has become more of an issue. I know what I want to do, but I no longer know what I can do. When people who know me well ask, I have to resist hitting back with "Did you forget how my life was turned upside down a few years back? Why the hell would I know the answer to that?"