looking back at the last couple of years

My youngest moved out properly in September, not the trial run he did two years ago but the actual version with a lease and furniture he bought himself. And I have been thinking, not constantly but in patches, about how the last two years have felt and what I would say about them if someone asked. The honest answer is that I am not sure the two things, him leaving and everything else that has been happening in my body, are entirely separate in my memory. They got tangled. The joint pain started around the same time. The low libido, which I kept not mentioning to anyone, also started around then. I do not know how much of the heaviness I felt was grief about the house being quieter and how much was something more physical. Probably both. Probably neither explanation is complete on its own. I read somewhere that women often describe this period as a loss of self and I understand what that means but I also think it is slightly too dramatic for what I actually experienced. It was more like a loss of assumption. Things I had assumed about my body, my energy, my interest in things, stopped being reliable. That is unsettling rather than devastating. Or it was for me. I am not at a conclusion about any of it. My son is fine. I am mostly fine. The joint pain in my hip is better than it was six months ago. Some things resolve and some things just become familiar.