It has been, so far, such an odd year.

Challenging and difficult, hairy and breathlessly fast. Desperately slow and worryingly complicated.

I have let go and I have held. I have been disappointed and I have disappointed. Built and destroyed.

I have earned focus and direction. I have lost stability and doubts.

People weave in and out of our lives, and make the fabric of our emotions. I have never been good at being self-contained.

I have learnt that drama does not, as I have always been accused of, colour my life and attract me to its flickering light. It was not drama. It was simple mismatching. I mismatched my existence in a way that could not be mended. It could only be erased.

One could even say that I deserve the life I live now. The excitement of not knowing whether I shall make ends meet this month; the despair at yet another bill from my old, rattling and impossibly decadent Alfa Romeo; the complete ignorance as to what will be of me in a year's time; the car boot sales and broken ceiling lamps; the second-hand toys and clothes; the holding hands across MacDonald's tables; the complete absence of a holiday or indeed its prospect.

There was a time in my previous life when I would have a professional electrician to fix lights and a chippy to put up shelves. Today Mr Mechanic had a go at being electrocuted, and fell through the cheap stool he was using to stand on, damaging his hand and destroying said stool. The ceiling lamp was nevertheless attached and it works.

I have the clumsy life I was too clumsy to seek.

And now it is tidier than it ever was.