1:00 a.m. — Mon 19 Oct, 2020

It takes time fo a writer to become. Some are mature authors at a very young age, others spend their entire lives getting there and never arrive. I have all the machinery in place to be a good writer, I have known this for a long time. But there is something missing: the ingredient of motivation. I have spent my adult life searching for that motivation. When I met L. I thought that finally I had found it. I felt the passion to write. I felt ambition, I sensed the possibilities—and it terrified me. Only recently, I learned that it is often a lack of place, origin—home—that leads to the creation of a writer. And the search for home drives them. The thing is, home is not a place. It is Another who accepts you for all that you are, good and bad. Briefly, very briefly, I found that home in L. But deep down I have always believed that I was not deserving, and so I sabotaged our home, our relationship. Us. And I returned to my homeless state, saying to myself: see, it was not meant to be. No one can love you, you do not deserve to have a home. You do not deserve love. This is who you are. A searcher, never finding. Home is where the heart finds acceptance. But if you do not have the capacity to open your heart, what then? What then?

2:00 a.m. — Mon 19 Oct, 2020 

I am living a lie. I exist, merely that. A room 3 feet by ten. A loft bed. And I am content with this: sleeping all day, most of the night. Waiting, waiting. Waiting for what? The motivation to live has abandoned me. When I attempt to write it is useless. Nothing is good. I go without a shower for days. What is the point? I meet no one, I talk to no one. I use wet wipes to clean my body,  wash my clothes in the bathroom sink using Dettol. I cannot be bothered to visit the launderette. 
The highlight of my days and nights is climbing up the ladder to my loft bed. Only there do I feel any sense of relief. I blamed L. for the longest time for this — the way I am, my lack of ambition, motivation, desire.  I have not made love, not even held another person, since my last weekend with L. in Shanghai. Five years without intimacy. Five years of indifference. Five years of coming to terms with my own inadequacies. L. is  not to blame, on the contrary, she is the only person who came close to breaking down the high wall around me. L. is the only person I ever wholly loved. Physically, spiritually, emotionally. But (there is always a ‘but’) ... I never believed I deserved her. I was never able to completely let go, because to let go exposes you to hurt. I have no idea where that comes from. I have wracked my memories but whatever trauma caused this happened when I was very, very young. In the end it matters not. In the end, L. was just as flawed as me, perhaps more so. 

I do not feel suicidal. That is the problem,  I do not feel anything right now. No desire to write, to eat, to walk, to talk. No interest in sex, no concern for my parents or brothers. I just want to be alone to lie on my bed and sleep. There is a seed of Hope buried deep within me, a single seed. I try to write, try to restore typewriters. I try to eat.