A glass of water at 3am tastes different after fifty years

I woke up at three this morning and stood at the kitchen window with a glass of water, and for a moment I thought about all the nights I spent with my hands inside someone's skull, and now I'm just a woman in a bathrobe watching the streetlights flicker. It's not sad, exactly. It's just that I used to matter in a way that had a pulse, and now I matter in a way that's quieter. I think I'm learning to like the quiet.