Despite the lack of sleep, I ran on adrenalin all day. I wasn't at all tired. I joked with bar patrons. Stretched. Walked the dog in the rain, earphones on, sometimes singing along to music. I wanted to dance. Dance all night in a dark nightclub, the bodies of strangers pressing against me. Dance away all the tension, so much tension I could scream; dance until I am in a sodden, emotionless heap on the floor. Moments of euphoria occurred. I knew exactly the why of things, for now. I no longer felt like a ghost.

During one of those moments of elation, I posted a selfie of my new haircut on FB. I remembered I have a face that my friends want to see; I am loved.

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Dear Diaryland, I hugely appreciate your kindness and compassion. Thank you. We have a lovely community here, which sometimes resembles an allotment garden, each of us tending our wee plots full of funny, weird, and beautiful moonlit thoughts. It's been a home for 23 years—the most enduring one so far.

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After the walk, I watched Return to Seoul, a film about diasporic longing. I empathise when Freddie, after revealing that her biological mother doesn't want to meet her, grins and literally throws herself into the fray on a dance floor. I recognise her wild, ungovernable energy. I know how it feels, that tension between the desire to belong and the knowledge that belonging might never happen, in a reality in which belonging is conditional.

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