Read through old blog, marveled at both eloquence and relative amusingness. Caught a whiff of nostalgia.

One year ago today I counted down exams to go and shielded my head from a rain of flying ring binders with my mouth very very close to the telephone mouthpiece, back pressed into the ridges of a radiator and feet braced against the door. My father thinks one day he might move his chess pieces over the checkered pattern of the couch, one move per day, playing against himself.

Two years ago today I counted down exams to go and the strands of my hair left behind on the pillow.

Not a lot has changed. In between things I stand on the threshold of the kitchen and draw circles on the tiles with my toes until I’m unstuck with the irritated flapping of tea towels. T. says, Lucy has been sitting exams every year since she was fourteen. Lucy is the unattainable 100%. He describes how the yellow post-notes adorned her pastel walls, fluttering in the kind of summer breeze we get only in the exam months. I ask him how he knows what colour her bedroom walls were, and he says, it’s platonic. Lucy is studying at Oxford. He talks about jumping through hoops a lot, and Lucy.

Decided to resurrect the past tense. Made a decisive effort. Picked through a history essay gluing -ed to the lonely short words. Concluded writing about the past more effective in past tense. Crossed out all that’s and is’s and and’s scribbled over indents crossed out full stops stopleavingspacessoitlookslikeiwroteholdingmybreath.

Made a string of resolute resolutions, in the past tense.