I’ve been retired for, like, five years now, and you’d think I’d be over caring what people think, right? You spend your whole career, you know, climbing the ladder, constantly aware of how you’re perceived, the quiet nods or the raised eyebrows in meetings. And I always prided myself on being… professional. Composed. Someone who had it together. And now I’m backpacking – a thing I always wanted to do but never had the time for, because, you know, corporate life – and I just had this incredibly humiliating experience. Like, seriously, truly mortifying. I was in this hostel, a huge dorm, probably twelve beds, really crowded, and I totally conked out. I mean, after a day of hiking and trying to figure out bus schedules in a new country, I was GONE. Next morning, I wake up, and there are these younger kids, probably in their early twenties, whispering, and then one of them just comes right out and says, "Someone was really going at it last night. Like, a CHAINSAW." And I just knew. I knew it was me. The snorer. The loud one. And then another one chimes in, "Yeah, I thought the building was going to collapse!" And everyone's just looking at me, you know? Not meanly, exactly, but with that kind of… baffled exhaustion. Like they’d been through a war. I just wanted the ground to swallow me whole. All those years, being the quiet, efficient one, always managing my image, and then BAM – I’m the obnoxious, sleep-destroying old lady in a bunk bed. And the thing is, I KNOW I snore. My late husband used to joke about it, but it was always, you know, in the privacy of our own home, behind closed doors. Never in front of a dozen strangers who paid good money for a bed and got… me. And it just makes me feel so… exposed. Like, all those years of careful presentation, of being the person who never puts a foot wrong, and here I am, being THAT GUY. The one who ruined everyone’s sleep. I wanted to just pack my bag and RUN. And I did, pretty much. Got out of there as fast as I could. I mean, what do you even say? "Sorry my nasal passages disrupted your dreams, future leaders of America?" It’s just so incredibly UNLIKE me. And it makes me wonder, you know, what other parts of me are just… out there, totally oblivious, and I have no idea? It’s unnerving, frankly. I thought I knew myself. Turns out, maybe not.