Wailing wall
My poor friend had to put up with me wailing and nearly drowning myself in bloody grief. Water strips everything away and there is nowhere to hide from the feelings of utter vulnerability, loss and grief that has to get packed away in order to manage the days and work.
I realised as I was talking about my frustrations with the landlord and his stringing along of hints of an offer but pulling back and upping the anti over this year, there were so many complex parts to all of this. He doesn’t want anything to change. I am sure he feels he has done me a favour because the rent has stayed low but it has meant he hasn’t had to think about it. It has been looked after. He glided by the things I have done and I have to acknowledge that I have never confronted him with what he has neglected. I realised as I swam today that wasn’t to do with worrying he would up the rent. I had always expected that. It was my fear that it would be pulled out from under me and yet more fucking grief. Loss of place, loss of connection, loss of safety, loss of the place where my friend can just swing by and pick me up and we can so easily just jump in at the end of these relentlessly exhausting draining days in a system that eats people up, spits them out and blames their exhaustion on their lack of resilience and suggests getting some therapy to keep you going in the system that really needs the long hard look at itself.
Anyway, we won’t be able to just jump in any more so that has been pulled from under us as well.
We are all pretty powerless .. except the people like my neighbours who have Posh additional houses by the water, of course. But they too are powerless in the face of their misery,

And yet we also have so much more power/privilege than so many. So much more. I will wail and that’s fine but I will try to keep my eye on gratitude too and do my best to hold both and anything else that heads this way.