Astrology, our favourite pseudo-science, tells me because of luminous gas held together by self-gravity, I need to reflect on the period in my life from 2013-2016. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t a great run. Come to think of it, I don’t think it usually is a great run. SJ, what is the common denominator?

2013 is ten years ago, it looks stark and real in words. I like that a word becomes concrete when I translate it from my head to the page. It is the only reality I know. And just like that, I see myself imprisoned, scratching bygone days into the cell wall with the tip of a shank. Solitary confinement sounds like relief.

What was our fair heroine doing ten years ago? Convincing herself of love, working too hard and smoking too much. I can’t think of this. Life marches and I don’t notice and if I stop I will surely end up doing the crazy thing which is either marrying the wrong person to prove a point or skipping the country with a perpetual broken heart. 

There is a certain thrill in derailing your own life. Gives one something to do. All big decisions are just little decisions culminating to a point where it seems like nothing was really a choice. I am trapped in the maze of life. Send help. I need to go home. It is the only place the screaming in my head stops. 

Thinking of organising my books in alphabetical order to gain control of my life, I notice the jutting spine of a highlighter yellow self-help book (a gift from a former lover), the title “Reinventing your life”. Not the first boy to give me a book to straighten out whatever is wrong with me. She plays a good damsel. The book is about the narratives we write ourselves as a result of our past experiences. It’s always your bad childhood and your parent’s fault. I think, I only thumbed through it. My attempts to read it fell short, the cocaine in my face blurring my memory of the words. I stumble across a checklist inside the book. Interactive. Neat-o. The exercise asks you to score how true a statement is now and how true it was when you were a child. 1) “I find myself clinging to people I’m close to because I’m afraid they’ll leave me.” All good. Pass this dig with flying colours. I do the opposite and inside I pat myself on the back for having the needy toughened out of me. Like it’s a badge of pride to let people go. 2) “I worry a lot that the people I love will find someone else they prefer and leave me”. Uh oh, this one shuts me down. Pass, as in I don’t want to take my turn and play this game anymore. Not pass as in the opposite of failure. When we find something true about ourselves, we didn’t want to admit, in a book given to us by a former lover who probably saw this blatantly gleaming out of us. The Lord findeth ways to humble thee, petit heroine. When you ask the universe for answers, it will open your eyes and you will become paranoid. 

It’s always a fucking pandora’s box of trauma and frankly, I’m bored. 

SJ xx