You know that feeling when a tiny thing, just a hiccup really, unlocks a whole vault of old fears? Like a little key in a dusty lock you thought was rusted shut. Today, it was just… a bit lightheaded. Mid-morning. Had skipped breakfast, a bad habit, I know. But my mind, it immediately went there — straight to the cliff’s edge. This is it. This is the onset. The irreversible decline. The permanent cognitive impairment. A slow, steady fade. Suddenly, you're not just a little dizzy, you're facing the ghost of every medical bill you ever struggled with. The image of the empty pantry, the email from the client that's two weeks late on payment. You see yourself — — unable to type — unable to remember client names — unable to even hold a coherent thought for a proposal And then… what? The freelance life, it’s all hands-on deck, all the time. No sick days, no paid leave. No one to pick up the slack if your brain decides to just… dim the lights. This isn't just about a missed meal anymore, is it? It’s about the precipice of losing everything you've built, piece by precarious piece, in a world that doesn't much care for an old woman with a sudden, unnamed malady. And then you're just sitting there, not even dizzy anymore, but absolutely FLOODED with this quiet despair. This recognition that one small physiological blip can unravel the whole tapestry. The decades of hustling, the adapting, the keeping up. It just takes one wrong turn in your own body, and suddenly you’re adrift. You try to tell yourself it's just low blood sugar, a temporary dysregulation. But the fear… it digs its hooks in deep. A quiet dread. And you realize, oh, THIS is what it means to be old and unmoored. You're just waiting for the next little key to turn, the next lock to spring open. And what will be inside that one?