In which Elaine is almost eight and twenty, is melancholy about it and is sick from school

Mom and Dad flew in after there Continuum weekend to celebrate my 28th birthday with me. These visits are often a cause of stress and anxiety, because there is a prerequisite that daughter spends time away from Briony, and in this particular visit, Mum and Dad insisted on visiting house, meeting Carlos and Esther for the first time and could not give a specific time for when up until the day. And Briony and me with a messy, messy room because we are terrible at keeping things neat and because the girls don't help much either. Stress, stress all around.

There's also an extent to which I feel...so many things I wanted to do by age 28 that have been left undone. Have The Disappearance finished, published, with more brain children on the way. Finished, or at least, be en route to a PHD, even though I'm not sure I want academia to be my life anymore. Have learned to be braver, not to worry so much whether people liked her or not, to not worry to be the brightest, wittiest and prettiest in the room. To be someone worthwhile instead, a better wordsmith, a better theorist. Something concrete for them to be proud of and I never feel that I've measured up to the things I should or want to be and somehow all of that is magnified whenever I see my family.

So means a great deal, when Mom squeezes my shoulder to say how happy she is with what I've made for myself, that I am happy. That I have Briony, that I have my friends, the girls, though she and Dad are still }: about rats. That she and DDad want to see my next short story. And I look at the things I want to do and the things I could be and think yeah, I can still do that.

Tying my hair back in writer's bun.