I recently spent 2-and-a-half hours in a place that used to be a favourite haunt, with someone I used to really like, talking about stuff that once caught my fancy. And I began to wonder – when did I change so much? When did things around me become so different? Nothing was the same except for the food and the drink.

I can see the future now. We’ll sit in those wicker chairs at that charming, serene and time-stopping café, probably arguing over whether bistro is Italian or French and your presence will no longer evoke that maelstrom of emotion within me.

I hope the pasta is just as bad.

We’ll sit around that table with empty glasses and fuzzy minds and that look in your eyes will no longer make me want to wish we were someplace else.

I hope the smirk on his face is just as bad.

Ten days and 9 nights of feeling more like a shell of your former self than you would care to imagine and the unfounded fears and impossible desires start to form a crust that you know will never be used. And none of it amounts to even a hill of beans when you open your eyes to the reality of real pain, of true and resounding terror, the kind that hollows you out long after it’s over. And it doesn’t matter if you’re only watching it on your TV screen.

An hour in the bathroom after what feels like years can really make you think, especially if it doesn’t involve a fancy beauty routine. Just an hour spent cleaning your toenails because you have nothing else to do and you haven’t heard the sound of another human voice the entire day. Sometimes, if you listen hard enough, the pipes will talk to you. And you will hear the wisdom of the bathroom pipes.