Is it just me or does anyone else feel this… hollow hum, like an old fridge running in an empty kitchen, when the kids leave after a holiday? Because I'm 55 now, divorced for what feels like a geological era, and my children—adults, obviously—they come and they go, and it’s WONDERFUL when they’re here, all the noise and the stories and the absolute chaos of laundry and dishes, and I plan these elaborate meals, and we watch terrible films, and I feel… connected, like a circuit breaker finally flipped on, but then they’re gone, back to their own lives, their jobs, their significant others, and the quiet descends like a shroud, and I’m left with this meticulous order again, the dishes gleaming in the rack, the living room too tidy, and I walk through the house and I can almost hear the echo of their laughter but it’s just the hum, you know? Just the hum. And it’s not that I don't HAVE things to do, because I do, I’m back in school, finally getting that degree I always meant to, and the coursework is demanding, and I’m perpetually stressed about deadlines and group projects with people half my age who communicate exclusively in TikTok dances, and I have friends, lovely friends, and I volunteer at the shelter, so my weekdays are full, absolutely jam-packed, but then the weekend looms, Saturday morning, and it’s just… open, vast, an expanse of time that used to be filled with soccer games and birthday parties and driving lessons, and now it’s just… me, and my textbooks, and the hum, and I try to plan things, museums or hikes or catching up on reading, but the motivation… it feels like trying to push a car uphill with a toothpick, and I just end up staring at the ceiling, or doom-scrolling, or reorganizing the spice rack for the third time that month, and then Sunday night hits, and I feel this profound exhaustion, like I’ve run a marathon just trying to exist through the emptiness, but also this relief, because Monday means structure again, and a reason to leave the house, and to pretend I’m a functional human being. Am I the only one who feels this intense pull between wanting my own life and utterly dreading the quiet solitude that comes with it, especially after they’ve all been here and gone again? Because it’s like a physical ache sometimes, this missing, this sudden absence of purpose for those two days, and I know it’s selfish, and I know they have their own lives, and I want them to have their own lives, of course I do, but the transition… it feels like whiplash, from full to utterly, terrifyingly empty, and I just… float, sometimes, through those weekends, feeling untethered, and then Monday comes, and I strap on my sensible shoes and put on a brave face for my classmates and my professors, and I wonder if anyone else sees the cracks, or if the facade is as impenetrable as I hope it is, and if this is just… it, now, until the next holiday.