Imagine this scenario. You, an adult, have a new job. Your manager is showing you the ropes, and you interject:

“What’s your favourite bit of the job?”

“Uh, well — probably liaising with clients.”

“Who’s your favourite client?”

“Sorry?”

“Your favourite.”

“Um, I’m not sure — “

“You’re only allowed one!”

Your manager would probably be regretting hiring you at this point, but words like “immature” and “childish” might also come to mind. Unfairly, I think, since it’s not children who perpetuate this weird form of interaction, but adults who — lacking a way of meaningfully engaging with children— impose…

I was 25 years old and I’d just fallen out with a friend. We’d both said things calculated to hurt one another, but when I reached out to make a half-baked apology (of the ‘if you’ll say you’re wrong, I’ll say I’m wrong’ variety) she didn’t take the bate. She was talented, volatile, funny, charming, sensitive, cruel, and kind: in other words, she was a person. In childhood I’d been able to brush off scraps with classmates: “so what, I never liked you anyway!”. But this time, however much I wanted her to conform to my idea of a villain…

As a teenager, I’d always felt “wrong” for being so anxious and unhappy — I saw these feelings as a sign of my failure to fit in, and as long as I felt them, I thought I would never be the well-adjusted person I so wanted to be. If only I could just be like everyone else. If only I wasn’t so uncomfortable. …

Family folklore says that toddler-Me had a lot to say. My aunts, who were teenagers at the time, like to remind me that on babysitting nights I’d talk so much at bedtime that they’d shut me in the cupboard to try to get me to stop — and I’d happily continue the conversation from the other side of the door.

Then school and adolescence happened, and I learned to pipe down, hold my tongue — and eventually keep quiet. At fifteen, I didn’t even know what I thought, I’d got so used to nodding and agreeing: obedient to the extent…

I was speaking with an older and wiser friend recently — a mother of three grown children — and I mentioned a prickly interaction with a family member who thought I was overindulging my three-year-old by letting her co-sleep with me. I was grumbling about being scrutinised, misunderstood, about my family member’s lack of understanding about early attachment and child development, and about the audacity to pass comment on the decisions I was making.

My older-wiser friend stopped me short: “Pffff: you’re a parent: you signed up for this.”

“For what?”

“For being judged! It’s part of being a parent.”

…

How the myth of creative genius is failing you.

I used to be one of those people with a drawer full of abandoned first drafts. Writing meant the first part: scrawling pent-up confessions in the middle of the night, or the breathless beginnings of novels that seemed like a sure thing until I saw them in the unforgiving light of day. When they failed my quality test, as they invariably did, they went into that drawer. Better luck next time.

I associated rewriting with an entirely different kind of person: business-minded, dispassionate, perfunctory, possibly wearing a suit — basically, a whole different personality that it would be unnatural for…

The only car I should be driving is a driverless one — and I’ve been saying this for as long as I can remember, and long before, I imagined it would be a real possibility in my lifetime. They’re overdue now — the Guardian predicted we’d all be “permanent backseat drivers” by now. Regardless of whether or not driverless vehicles will be hitting the market any time soon, it’ll be a while before I can afford one, and in the meantime, as plenty of people remind me, I should really learn to drive. The ‘really’ is important here. It’s all…

Be faithful to your obsessions. Let them guide you like a sleepwalker. — JG Ballard

I was in my late teens and didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d already “tried” university — studying literature— but found myself distracted and uninvolved, so I pulled out after just a term, drifting from one temporary job to another, confused and upset that I’d been a bad fit for a degree I thought I’d love. I read books, I loved books — and I even had a few favourites — but I read haphazardly, picking up this and that, trying one thing…