**February**
The first two weeks are the worst.
I throw myself into my work with a kind of desperate intensity that probably isn't healthy. My Advanced Painting professor, Professor Nakamura, watches me with concerned eyes as I stay late in the studio every night, sometimes until security kicks me out at two a.m.
"Dakota," she says one evening, standing beside my easel. "This is powerful work. But you need to sleep."
I look at the canvas in front of me. It's all raw emotion, reds and blacks and deep purples that bleed into each other. Pain made visible.
"I'm fine," I say.
She gives me a look that says she doesn't believe me. "Art can be cathartic. But it can also be avoidance. Make sure you're processing, not just producing."
After she leaves, I stare at the painting for a long time
