35. The ladder isn’t the only precarious thing I’m on. 

I have been redecorating the flat like a thing possessed.

There is a practical reason for this. I’ve started with the spare room, which I now have to turn into a rent-outable space. I have ripped out a big built-in cupboard, reused the wood to make a small built-in wardrobe, pulled up the carpet and underlay, painted the walls and woodwork and fitted laminate flooring.

And I’m bloody knackered. 11pm on Saturday evening I was filling the holes in the walls, getting the cutting in done ready for rolling the next day. By Sunday night I’d done all the painting – well, most of it. Skirting boards all had at least one coat of eggshell finished in readiness for the new flooring I’d put down Monday. I felt a bit manic, like the ladder wasn’t the only precarious thing I’m on. 

But in all this frenzy of activity there feels a bit of control. And even more than that, I’m doing it for me.

The practical reason is financial. I need to get the room rented out fairly soon. Just to ease the burden of paying a mortgage alone, and give me some thinking time without completely stressing out about money. It’s all been stressful enough.

The emotional reason, and I hadn’t fully realise this until it was nearly finished – new colour, new layout, almost new everything – is that I want the room I spent the past two months alone in gone. Some of my darkest moments have been spent there. My sleepless nights trying not to listen to all the noises, tiny and almost unheard sounds, that would remind me that I was wide awake. The room wasn’t filled with lovely things, it had been a spare room that we put stuff because there wasn’t really anywhere else for them. It was pleasant enough, but mostly just functional.

And it became a constant reminder that I was in limbo. Not able, or wanting to go backwards, and not looking forward to a path that I hadn’t chosen.

But now, with the room different, my next step has been actioned by me. Better than sitting around wishing. Although I wish I didn’t ache so much.

But now I have a new future to consider – sharing a space with a whole other person.

I look at the adverts for ‘rooms wanted’ online. It’s like dating, I suppose, with “could I share a fridge with this person” being my big issue. Not much interested in the GSOH but the ‘cleans up in kitchen’ comes high on the list.

But I don’t want to do it. So it’s hard to make it happen. It just feels hollow and joyless and financial. He and I had moved in together, had chosen to have our future together.

This wasn’t it.