I regularly search, in my children's faces, for signs that I am indeed their mother. You know, a glimpse of brown speckles in their eyes, the curve of their little noses when they smile, the rotund pertness of a naked bottom...In general, I'd say they don't look like me at all, with the blond hair and fair skin. Pest n.1 is frighteningly good at maths too, a talent which places him as far away from me as possible, but very close to his father.

There are, however, a few traits which are definitely mine: the rebellious and disobedient streak, for example; a taste for the dangerous and unusual; indomitable stubborness; a passionate, proud nature; and physical energy.

I have enough physical energy to supply a nuclear power station; it sometimes rules me with its iron fist: there is no chair that can contain me for more than half an hour; no relaxing holiday would ever be so if I were having it; I have never been able to read the paper without doing something else at the same time.

If I had a sex life, I'd pity the man.

Today, I took the boys for a bike ride. Not a normal bike ride, mind... but one which involved us following a special cycle track across the urban conglomerate we live by and over to the other side of town. About nine miles. My five-year-old doesn't even have gears on his old bike but was riding with the best of them.

Down the hill, over the bridge, along the ancient path and past the medieval ruins of St Peter's, over the hill again and coasting the canal before entering the secret track, sunk among the vegetation and hidden from the roads.

I heard no complaints or whinging from the boys; just the quiet whirring of the wheels in front of me, and my own. The place is virtually deserted now, at the end of summer, bar the occasional mad cyclist in funky gear and goggles. We stopped for a banana and a drink, hit the playground, ate horrid plastic sandwiches, got mucky with the plastic icecream.

When we came back, Pest n.1 and Pest n.2 suggested we jump on the trampoline for a while, just to use up the remaining energy.

Hours of mindless physical effort, to drown my pain. If I listen to my body and push it to the limit, I can occasionally escape from the blender inside my chest.

I have found Mr Lost, and he should legitimately belong to me. Finders keepers. If only it were that simple. I have dealt with people's past all my life; sometimes, I have managed to deal with my own. Our past gives us the face we have and the life we wish for. People's present is more difficult to deal with because its roots stretch, octopus-style, in every possible direction, settling on the very ground which helps our present to become, eventually, the past.

Mr Lost's present has no room for me, apart from tiny pockets of snatched happiness and a steady flow of communication. I have never talked so much to a man in all my life.

I used to nurse the concept of my ideal man in the upper strata of my romantic fantasies, and Mr Lost has simply outstripped and smashed the record. I cannot 'file' him under 'lover' any more than I can consider him a figment of my imagination. He is, quite simply, all I have ever wanted.

He cannot know that or understand, or even find out whether the feeling is mutual, unless I step back and watch. I have physical energy which is only matched by my emotional intensity. It shouts in his ears, and he needs silence to listen.

Sometimes, you must be free to want to be held.

Removing from our small lives the very little we had is exquisite agony, for which I am not equipped, having no means to protect myself. I gambled, and may lose it all. But gamble I did because there is no other way.

'I want out', I said to Mr Husband last night.

I'd rather just hurt than hurt and feel guilty.

'I know you are unhappy', he replied. And he looked immensely sad himself. 'If you could draw a list of everything that makes you unhappy about me, perhaps I could see what I can do to change. To have you back.'

A list. There is no amount of physical energy that would help me draw that list. Not now that the stakes are so much higher, and I long for so much more.

I loathe myself.