I have started drifting again. Sometimes I catch myself halfway downstream, swallowed up by the noise and motion of my own thoughts, caught up in the current that bears me away out to sea.
I cannot swim, although I used to know how. My mother paid for me and my brother to take lessons at the leisure centre when we were children. There are pictures of us both sheathed in shining swimming caps, swaddled in towels, grinning with all of our missing teeth, little fingers grasping badges that proudly declare our swimming abilities.
There was a time when I knew how to stay afloat. I no longer have the instinct for it. These days I just let the current rush over me, tossing me to and fro until I no longer know which way is up.