And I find myself here. I’ve switched the light on, and excited and delighted Bebe The Cat for no good reason. I’m awake and a postcard is trying to happen. I could tell you the one about how I didn’t get to Book Group last night. I wanted to go. I planned to go. I even needed to go. And yet when it came to getting the right clothes on and leaving the house, I put on my pyjamas and retreated to bed world. I felt defeated. It did not taste good in my mouth. I don’t know if that’s why I’m awake in the night, tap, tapping away on the ledge while the darkness presses in.

I could tell you the one about talking to my dearest and most beloved friend, yesterday, about how scared she is of, as she so quaintly put it, losing her marbles. Maybe I’m awake in the night worrying about that too…

I’ve walked up and down the length of my flat. It’s not a very long flat. And I don’t know what I’m looking for anyway. I am caught somewhere between rage and prayer, between bloody combat and waving the white flag. Sometimes I can’t even tell the difference.

I am so fucking, impossibly tired. Depression tired. Tired beyond reason. Tired that would make a mother roll her eyes, because I don’t actually do a lot. Tired of being tired. Tired of the effort required to breathe in and breathe out. Tired of being kind to myself, of soldiering on, of keeping the faith. Tired of lifting my head off the table, the pillow, the ground. Oh, how that head wants to give up and go down. Disappear me, I mumble… take me… melt me, or break me down into tiny pieces that don’t tether to anything…

So, this it seems, is my postcard in the night. Not linear. Not eloquent. Not very funny, which I know I sometimes can be. Not long or clear. Possibly a prayer or a protest, or just me complaining. A whimper in the quiet and separation of night world, that I have had the audacity to draw attention to. That’s it in a nutshell. That’s what the postcard says: this is me whimpering in the night.

A tiny space opens up in my chest and I feel a thread of light and connection, linking me to all the other humans whimpering in the night.