It’s strangely chilly in my new abode, and as I sit on my bed and type ginger is poking his nose through the gap in the sash window. Longingly.

I am in pain, of various types and in various parts of my anatomy. Not all of this pain is a result of being severally bitten by ginger. Every time I grind to a halt, he takes it as an indication that it is necessary to bite my feet. But stillness is one of the ways that I can dull the other pain.

I am by nature a hard-working and physically fit individual, and yet at this juncture I find myself bereft of gainful employment and broken in several ways. My left shoulder is in almost constant pain, my right shoulder is tweaking, I have tennis elbow, a possibly broken thumb, and either mild groin strain or the beginnings of a hernia.

The perfect time to move house, hump boxes of books up and down stairs and do stuff, stuff, and more stuff. The world shifts, but I feel more and more at sea as my surroundings sift and change along with it. Each time I move, I unpack fewer things, and more boxes stay unopened, undisturbed, contents largely unremembered. Those things I do unpack are not those things that I consider useful, but those things which remind me of who I am, or whom I am meant to be.

I now reside in someone else’s world, even though that someone else now inhabits someone else’s world. Interchangeable worlds. Adjustable worlds.

The move aggravated every part of my body. I am used to feeling physically in control, in command, on top of things. Now I am in constant pain. I have no idea how so many parts of me have broken so quickly. And with injuries I cannot exercise as much as I ought … which aggravates everything.

And as if that were not enough, I am having major communication problems. It’s odd how so much happens all at once. This is the way of it.

Ginger is now curled up at my feet, half laid on my calves, his ear flapping as it just touches me. I cannot move without waking him.

Ginger spends the day poking his nose through the gap at the bottom of the open sash window. He wishes to be set free, and watches the sun all day.