I just — I don’t even know what’s going on with me, to be honest. It’s 2 AM, the house is so freaking quiet, like a tomb almost, and I’m just… staring at the ceiling. The kids left for college a month ago, and it’s like someone just… pulled the plug? Like I was running on this super high voltage for twenty years, and now it’s just… silence. Utter, complete silence. And with the quiet comes this… exhaustion. Not just tired, you know? Not like, 'oh, I need a good night’s sleep' tired. This is like, bone-deep, soul-sucking fatigue that makes me wonder if I'm even still *me*. Or if this is just… what 42 feels like when you stop running on pure adrenaline. I keep trying to figure it out, you know? Like, are we just supposed to be perpetually exhausted as we get older? Is that the deal? Because I remember my mom always saying she was tired, but I always thought it was, like, *her thing*. Not a universal human condition, especially for women who, let’s be real, are basically a perpetual motion machine from the moment they have kids until… well, until the kids move out, I guess. It’s like my body forgot how to just *be* without a thousand small hands pulling at it, a million questions needing answers. Now it’s just me, and the weird echo in the house, and this… heaviness. I try to do stuff, like clean the kitchen or read, but my brain just sort of… short-circuits. It’s like my operating system is old and buggy, and everything just takes SO MUCH EFFORT. And it’s not just the physical thing, I guess. It’s like a mental exhaustion, too. I look at my husband across the table at dinner and sometimes it feels like I’m looking at a complete stranger. We talk, sure, we make polite conversation about our days, but it’s… thin. Like a very, very thin veil. And the energy it takes to even pretend to be engaged, to be the person he thinks I am, or that I *used* to be… it’s just too much. Am I just falling apart? Is this what happens when your 'purpose' changes, or when the goal you’ve been sprinting towards for so long just… disappears? I don’t know if it’s normal. I really don’t. Or if I should be actually worried, like, something is seriously wrong with me. I just feel… so tired. All the time.