You know when you’ve had something, like, your whole entire life? And you just assume it’ll always be there, just… *is*? Like, for me, it’s always been about, well, *that*. You know, the whole… drive. And honestly, it was always pretty robust. I mean, my husband, bless his heart, sometimes it felt like I was the more, uh, enthusiastic one, if you catch my drift. Even when I hit, like, my late 40s, early 50s, when all my girlfriends were complaining about perimenopause and feeling like a dried-up prune, I was still, you know, quite active. I actually felt a bit smug about it, if I’m being completely honest. Like, *ha*, my body’s still got it, even if public society decided I was invisible the moment I turned 50. But that was fine, because *I* still felt like *me*. Every single day, every day, I knew that part of me was there, humming along. And now… it’s just gone. And when I say gone, I mean GONE. Like, poof. One day, you wake up, and it’s just… not there anymore. Not a little less, not a dip, but just a complete and utter blank. I swear, it was like someone flipped a switch. I’m 62, retired from teaching last year – spent 35 years in a classroom, you know? And I thought, *this is it*, time to enjoy things, time for a little more… spontaneous fun. And then, wham. For the last six months, every morning, every single morning, I wake up and it’s just… crickets. I used to have, like, actual physical sensations, you know? But now, nothing. My body feels different, like it’s just… empty in that particular way. And everyone says, "Oh, it’s just aging, darling," but it doesn’t *feel* like typical aging. This feels like a sudden, jarring stop. Like the engine just seized up, not slowly sputtered out. And you know what the really frustrating part is? It’s not even that I miss the *act* so much, though I do, sometimes. It’s more that I miss *feeling* it. I miss that spark, that internal hum that used to be a part of me, like my heartbeat or my breathing. It was always there, and now it’s not, and it makes me feel like… less. Less like myself, less complete. I look in the mirror and I see this woman, 62 years old, and my body has changed so much, without my consent, really. My skin, my hair, the way things just… droop now. And that I could deal with. But this, this internal silence, it just feels like the final straw. Like, is this really it? Am I just supposed to accept that this fundamental part of who I am is just… over? And nobody talks about it like *this*, you know? They talk about gradual changes, but not this complete, sudden absence. It’s unsettling. Deeply unsettling.