After happiness (or at least contentment) I wake up and feel lost again, wholly within myself, in full awareness of the material reality of my situation, the lack of bonds and fellow feeling, the precarious status of the roof above my head, the knowledge that people much younger - men and women, not boys and girls - have done and are doing things I envy, even as they remain outside my inclinations and abilities, as distant and implausible as the moon.

The horror, once again, of a naturally limited life and my own loss, waste and decay.

The shame at my biography.