I was pruning the hydrangeas just yesterday, the big blue ones by the front walk that always bloom so intensely in July, and the sun was hitting my neck just right, you know that feeling, that warmth that makes you think of good things, and I was using my new Japanese shears – carbon steel, unbelievably sharp, a birthday gift from my daughter, the one who lives in Brooklyn and works in finance, always sending me these high-end implements I’d never buy for myself, God bless her – and I just felt this… this *absence*. It hit me like a sudden gust of wind, even though it was a perfectly still afternoon. Seventy-six years old, and still getting blindsided by the internal landscape, it’s almost comical, isn’t it? I’ve been married to Margaret for fifty-two years. Fifty-two. We met at a protest, can you believe it, back when we were firebrands, full of righteous anger, thinking we could change the whole damn world. Now we argue about who left the porch light on. And I love her, truly, I do. She’s my anchor, my confidante, we have this shared history that’s practically a novel, full of twists and turns, disappointments and triumphs. We know each other's tells, our little tics and quirks, the way she clears her throat when she’s about to tell me I’m being ridiculous, the way I tap my foot when I’m getting impatient with her meticulous sorting of the recycling. It’s a profound connection, a deep, abiding companionship. But when I was out there, with the scent of cut greenery in the air and the sun on my skin, I remembered other times, other sensations. A different kind of heat. It’s been… decades, really. Since there was any physical spark. It faded so gradually, so imperceptibly, like the slow draining of a bathtub, that I almost didn’t notice it was gone until I was standing in an empty basin. Now, it’s all comfort and quiet affection, a hand held across the dinner table, a pat on the arm. And that’s good, it’s meaningful, it’s what people my age are *supposed* to have, I suppose. But my mind, damn it, my mind still remembers. It's like I have this phantom limb of desire that twinges every now and then, especially when I’m alone with my thoughts, tending to my plants. And I just wonder, for the next thirty years, if I’m lucky enough to get them, is this enough? Is this quiet, gentle, sexless companionship enough to sustain me? Or am I just going to be haunted by the ghost of a different kind of connection, forever pruning my roses and remembering a fire that’s long since burned out? Sometimes I lie awake at 3 AM and just stare at the ceiling, listening to her soft breathing beside me, and it feels like a grand cosmic joke, a bit of cruel irony from the universe. The old man still has a pulse, still has a spark somewhere deep down, but it’s dormant, utterly neglected, like a patch of lawn I just can't bring myself to water anymore.