It’s the little things.

I thought, I’ll just check in Henry’s design book to see what an Eames chair looks like. It was mentioned in my book and while I thought I knew what it looked like, I wanted to be sure. And then, oh, I can’t. I haven’t got it anymore.

And the big ones.

I wouldn’t have been reading if I was still with Henry; he couldn’t sleep with the light on.

Recently, books have been my lifesaver. Even at my worst, five weeks ago now, that horribly awful and painful weekend, somehow, and thank god I did, I managed to start reading a book. Obviously it was about a mad person, that helped. And it was easy to read and written in really short chapters with usually four or six pages. That helped too. And the best thing, the really amazing thing was that I finished it about a week later.

I can’t remember the last time I finished a book, maybe a year ago and maybe a year ago before that. I’ve started plenty of books and they line my walls like half-read ghosts. I can still remember their stories but they haunt me with a sense of failure rather than satisfaction. They weren’t bad stories, I just got distracted or couldn’t concentrate and got out of the habit and then I feel that after a few days or a week or so you can’t pick them back up. It's just wrong.

So when I start a book I’m scared that I won’t finish it. There’s nothing that tells me I won’t, I’ve given up on first pages, second pages and anywhere in the middle, even when the end is in sight, even when I’m really enjoying it, just when I think I’m on the home straight, I stop reading, for whatever reason. I hate myself for that.

But hurrah, after reading that book I’ve read three more. Four books finished in four weeks, that’s a record. I’m worried that I’ll fail pretty soon but I’m still reading. I like it. It’s a friend. It’s company. It gives me something to look forward to in the evenings when I’ll just be home alone. Even the worst nights of the week, even on Friday and Saturday nights you don’t feel so excruciatingly lonely when you’ve got a book to read.

Now when I’m walking or cycling around Leeds, it doesn’t feel so bad because I act like I’m in a book. In my head, I’m speaking as if I’m reading something that someone else has written and you read about people on their own all the time and reading about them doesn’t make you feel sad or depressed, it makes you think they're interesting, even cool. Cool, to me anyway.

I’m riding my bike through Chapeltown to go to my therapist and I cycle along a new route through the back streets and it’s a bit scary because Chapeltown is a bit scary and I cross a street a taxi driver once told me he wouldn’t go down. As I’m cycling through the houses all I can think is that the neighbourhood is so quiet. There is no noise. Literally none. Why is the neighbourhood so quiet? And I'm thinking to myself, this is the kind of place where I could get shot. It wouldn’t surprise me. A woman looks at me as I cycle past as if she wonders what I’m doing there, disturbing the peace. Why have I ventured into her neighbourhood?

And I’m liking describing the scene to myself and I'm liking observing because it makes me feel less lonely.