I got here and I suddenly realised how suffocated I felt in that shared house in St Albans. How weighed down I�ve been feeling; on edge and fragile, and completely unlike myself. I let out a huge sigh of relief the moment I let the humungous sofa envelope me.

There�s no one to pester me here. Ma isn�t treating me like a guest, but at the same time she�s taking care of me like she would one. Maybe she senses things aren�t all that okay with me.

I hate admitting that. It costs me my pride�which to many people will sound ridiculous, but it makes all sorts of sense to me.

I hate admitting, especially to myself, that I feel tightly coiled and brittle. That I worry about my state of mind all the time these days. That this feeling is so unlike anything else I�ve ever experienced, simply because I understand the depth of it now and I know my life has to change.

It�s nice here. With the patio doors flung open I can smell the lavender bushes and hear some wind chimes from further down the street. The water feature is tinkling away and I just don�t know what to do with myself. I feel sort of suspended in time�not willing to completely let go of everything that�s stressing me out until it�s resolved, but unable to feel irritated.

A rare mixture of anxiety and peacefulness.

I just want to feel better. I just want everything to be sorted out. I want to not owe any money or be worrying about horrible mail coming through the post. I want to be losing weight and feeling healthier again. I want to have finished college so I don�t have to think about the work anymore. I want for it to be summer already so I can forget about everything for a while and especially move on from St Albans. I want my head to be not so confusing and my heart to not ache for no apparent reason.

I want all the apathy to just leak away with the tide, or be swept away in the wind. More and more lately I�ve found myself sitting somewhere completely staring into space. It worries me.

In some ways I feel better than ever. I recognise more of who I am and what I want from life. I�m forgiving and forgetting at a rate I never thought I would. Things that I once held paramount in my life don�t even get a second thought. I�m seeing through it all and I�m seeing further than I ever thought possible. Like stretching my fingers into outer space and marvelling at the moons, when I used to just glance at the stars.

But I also don�t feel quite right. I don�t feel stable�or more accurately, I don�t feel like I�m always here. I�m having a lot more ups and downs than usual�and some things seem harder than they should be; which gets me frustrated.

I still feel weak. Like crying with frustration at the thought of not being completely okay, not being overwhelmingly strong. They say pride comes before a fall; well I�m falling, and I�m going to keep on falling until I find a way to stop.

I want to let everything drain away. Like emptying the blood from your veins or letting tears make salty tracks down your cheeks until they�ve dried up any stores you had. Then I want to smile; and keep smiling until the day I die.

I want to lie down in a field and watch the sunrise, and stay to watch it set. I want to swim the length of a river and marvel at the ordinary fish weaving in and out of the reeds. I want to dive from a fifty storey building, laughing the entire way. I want to skip down a country lane, picking bluebells and sniffing each and every one. I want to strip down to nothing and float away in the ocean.

I just want to be free. But that, it seems, is too much to ask right now.