Could have been a contender!

I haven't worked less than 10 hour days since Mike left. Nearly all of the hours have been for a client of Mike's. The one he said don't lose, so I'm doing my damnedest not to lose, but think I may lose anyway because the requirements for this project are a complete moving target ("Oh, can you add this? How about that? I'm sure this was a project requirement. Needs to be done today. Can you push live to this server that you've never seen before, and oh, btw, runs IIS, not Apache?").

Tonight is the final night. After this, I'm done. I'm not doing any more work for this client. I've gained even more weight. I have bedsores on the back of my legs from sitting for so long, and my knees hurt. No client is worth the loss of my health like this.

The worst part is the realization that, if I had worked this hard on one of my own projects, it would have been something to behold. I could have made something of this life.