I’m 62, retired now, which you’d think would be a time for… well, for more of everything, wouldn’t you? More time for oneself, for hobbies, for the quiet pleasures. But no, it’s not really like that. It’s strange, I was always quite… vigorous, I suppose is the word. Even after the divorce, which was a real rupture, mind you, a complete tearing away of everything I thought was certain. Mid-forties I was, when Frank decided he needed something *more*. And half my friends, the ones you thought were bedrock, just… evaporated. Or worse, took his side. So I rebuilt. At fifty, I started completely from scratch, teaching at a different school, even moved cities. And still, through all that, through the sheer effort of it all, that part of me, the… sexual appetite, it was always there. A steady thrum. But now. Now it’s just… gone. And it’s not like it faded, which I was prepared for, I think. I mean, you read about these things, don’t you? The gradual decline, the waning desire as you age, a natural biological attenuation. That’s what I *expected*. But this wasn’t like that. It was sudden. A switch flipped, almost. One day it was there, a reliable presence, a quiet hum beneath the surface of daily life, and the next… nothing. An utter void. Like a light just went out. And that’s what worries me, you see. Because a sudden cessation, that’s not typical aging, is it? (I’ve been reading a bit, you know, trying to understand.) I taught biology for years, so I know a thing or two about physiology, about endocrinology, even a little about psychosexual development. And this doesn’t fit the usual trajectory. This feels… different. Pathological, perhaps. And it’s not just the physical absence, though that’s disconcerting enough. It’s the feeling of loss. A fundamental part of myself, just… vanished. It’s a quiet grief, one you can’t really speak about at the grocery store, can you? Or even with the few friends who stuck by after Frank. What would I say? "My libido has deserted me"? It sounds so… clinical. But it feels so much deeper than that. Like a color has gone out of the world, a warmth. I look back at all those years, all those experiences, even the difficult ones, and there was always that spark, that undercurrent of… vitality. And now it’s just still. And I keep wondering if this is a harbinger of something else, something worse. Is it my brain? Is it just… the end of everything interesting? I wake up sometimes and just feel this immense sadness, a wistful yearning for something that felt so intrinsically me, and now isn’t. And I don’t know why.