I get back home to the upstairs air conditioning turned on and a housemate with a fever battling sickness with orange juice. I offer him Dimetapp – drugs are the way to go – but maybe he has principles around that kind of thing. As I go down the stairs and pass his door I think, we all know our own bodies better, we all know our own limits and specific faults. The special ways our limbs creak and leak and crack. When I go outside at midnight to chuck an old pair of gumboots in the bin for collection tomorrow, I hear the rattle of the air conditioning unit from the sidewalk and wish for a way to shush it.

I shouldn’t have gotten the dhal at dinner. The promise of jasmine rice (unsatisfactory) and roti (always delicious) seduced me. Paella next time. Or the chicken breast with the mango and coriander salsa.

This part of the year seems so confusing, both emptying and filling at rapid rates. The new year comes this Sunday but I am a little too jaded to believe in fresh starts. I’m torn between wanting to start my to do list now or use the excuse of my work break to not lift a finger to do anything productive. I’ve been ignoring the bathrooms that need cleaning and the lawn that needs mowing and the kitchen floor that need mopping. The passive aggressive act of being the only inhabitant of this house that does those things to begin with.

More of my little private niches online keep being infiltrated by real life friends, the ones I complain about sometimes when I need to vent. Maybe they’ll find this post and read it. I hope they don’t feel bad. It’s mostly my problem. I briefly flirted with the idea of opening another Twitter account, solely for these little drips of bile I now swallow back, but then I think maybe now would be the best time to turn that tap off entirely. Either say it to their faces or find a way to feel something that doesn’t lead to bitterness and resentment. The burden is on me. I retain the right to open a secret Twitter account in the future.

Sarah sent me home, as she always does and we have a conversation in my driveway, her headlights on, just like we always do. I listen to her and think of all the many ways in which she is flawed, but also in which she is loved by her friends, and by me. How those two overlap, again and again. I try and think of ways to encourage her, to not shut down what she knows to be a little bit wrong with herself. I used to be a huge proponent of being blunt and dishing out tough love. Still am, sometimes. But so many times I know I appreciate a soft touch over a prickly reprimand. We’re all trying so hard. I tell her a story about my friend, almost immediately I know it has nothing to do with her situation, but I can only hope she knows I’m telling it as a distraction. This is a piece of me that’s broken. I understand. I understand.

An old digital camera, a desk lamp and a set of plastic drawers go up onto a recycling website, the start of my material purge. I have gotten a message regarding the camera, I hope someone else wants the other two things. I think of running some errands tomorrow, and maybe dropping off some clothes at a donation centre. Start hacking away at the small pile I’ve accumulated in my room, start hacking away at all the things I have here, to lighten the load. I am burning off my wings.