My wife, Laura, has always been my rock.

She's the grounded one, the person who keeps me sane when life gets messy.

We've been married for six years and our life together has been, for the most part, normal.

Maybe even boring in the best way.

Steady jobs, a little house in the suburbs, and the kind of routine you don't even think

about because it just works.

That's why all of this is so hard to wrap my head around.

It's like I'm losing her, or maybe I'm losing something

about her, if that makes any sense. It started small, little things I barely noticed at first.

Like a couple of weeks ago, we were sitting on the couch watching TV, and I realized she wasn't laughing at a joke

I knew she'd normally find funny. When I looked over, she was staring at the screen,

but her eyes weren't focused. She was somewhere else. I nudged her, and she blinked like I'd snapped her out of a trance.

She laughed it off, said she was just tired.

Another time, she forgot where she put her keys.

Now, I know that sounds like nothing.

Who doesn't lose their keys?

But Laura never does. She's meticulous, the kind of person who has a place for everything and everything in its place.

She even joked about how out of character it was. Guess I'm getting old, she said, with this weird little laugh that didn't feel like her.

There have been other moments too, like how she zones out during conversations or how she started hesitating when she speaks, like she's trying to figure out what to say.

At first, I thought she might just be stressed.

Work's been rough on both of us lately, and everyone has off days.

But it's happening more and more, and I can't shake the feeling that something's off.

...