Okay so like... this is probably gonna sound insane, right? But I gotta get it out. I just… I don't even know where to start. It’s 2 AM, I should be studying for that poli-sci midterm, but my brain just won’t shut up. I’m sitting here in this tiny studio, walls are like paper thin, and all I can hear is the dude next door snoring and it’s making me want to SCREAM. All these years, you know? All that work, all that… *influence*. And now? Now I’m cramming for a midterm like some twenty-year-old, trying to remember the difference between unitary and federal systems, like it matters a damn. The thing is, it used to matter. Every single day, every day, it felt like I was *doing* something. Making decisions. People came to *me*. "Sir, what do you think?" "Ma'am, your input is crucial." And I'd just… *know*. It was like a second skin, that office, that power. My whole life was built around it. Dinners, calls, meetings – my apartment was basically just where I slept between making things happen. And I loved it, you know? The hum of it all, the feeling that if I wasn't there, things would just… stall. Then poof. Just like that. Done. Retired. Suddenly I'm not "Sir" anymore, I'm just… the old person who lives down the hall. My kids, bless 'em, they're like, "Dad, you should pursue a hobby! Take up painting!" Painting? Me? I spent my life orchestrating budgets bigger than some small countries, and they want me to paint still life? So I thought, okay, okay, reinvent. Go back to school. Get that degree I never finished, you know? Prove I'm still sharp. Prove I still *have* it. But it’s not the same. It’s really not. I sit in these lectures, surrounded by kids who are half my age, and they’re all buzzing about AI and crypto, and I’m just trying to keep up with the reading list. My brain, it just doesn't work that way anymore, that fast. Last week, I was in a study group and this kid, like, barely out of high school, interrupted me. *Me*. Said, "With all due respect, Professor, I think you're missing the contemporary application." Professor. He called me Professor. Not in a respectful way, either. It felt like… a dig. Like he thought I was just some old guy rambling. And I just wanted to tell him, I wanted to shout, "I ran a *department* that impacted MILLIONS of lives, you little punk!" But I didn't. I just sat there, nodded, and pretended to write something in my notebook. So yeah. Here I am. Apartment’s quiet. My phone, it doesn’t ring with urgent calls anymore. Just reminders for library book returns. Is anyone else, like, going through something similar? This… feeling of just being completely… unplugged? Like you poured your entire self into something, and then one day it just vanishes, and you’re left with all this… nothing? And all the things you thought defined you, they just… don’t anymore? Like, what now? Seriously, what the hell now?