It’s 2 AM and I’m staring at a cold slice of apple pie. My mother’s FAVORITE. Her face, you know? Just... blank. Not even a flicker when I put it down in front of her. Not for the pie she used to beg me to make, the pie she’d sneak slices of before dinner, the one that meant Christmas, birthdays, Tuesday, whatever. She just looked at it. Looked through it. Looked through *me*. My mom. The one who taught me to bake it, who’d laugh so hard she’d cry when I added too much cinnamon, who’d tell me I was her witty girl, her clever girl. And now... nothing. Just this empty shell. Anyone else out there dealing with this? This slow, agonizing disappear-fucking-ance? My kids are gone. Both of them. Off to college. House is a tomb. The silence is deafening, it actually HURTS my ears. For twenty years, it was organized chaos, a beautiful mess, and now it’s just... dust motes in sunbeams. My husband, he’s like a roommate I barely know. We eat dinner, we watch TV, we go to bed. No actual conversation. No actual *anything*. I spent all this time, all these years, being MOM. Being the glue. Being the one who knew everyone’s schedule, everyone’s favorite food, everyone’s fears. And now what? My purpose just... evaporated. Like steam off a hot pie that nobody wants. I feel like I’m screaming into a void. My mother, my husband, my kids who are too busy with their new lives to call back. I wept silently in the kitchen tonight, just... wept. A whole, pathetic, snotty mess. Because what the hell am I supposed to do now? Who am I? Am I the only one who feels like their entire life just got pulled out from under them, leaving them dangling over nothing, with absolutely no idea how to even begin? The pie is still on the counter. Untouched.