A Letter for Every Month They're Gone

“Open when you miss home”

Here is home, in no particular order: the boiler that groans at 6 a.m., next door's bins that never go out on the right day, the corner of the sofa that is objectively yours, the smell of the road after it rains. None of it has changed. None of it is going to. I'm keeping it all exactly as annoying as you left it so that walking back in feels like no time passed at all. Miss it as much as you like. It's allowed. Missing it means you've got somewhere to come back to.

— Everything here is waiting.

“Open when you've had a bad day”

I don't know what today was, and I might not hear about it for a week, so let me get ahead of it. You are allowed to have had a completely rubbish day. You don't have to file it as character-building or put a brave face on it for my benefit. Eat something. Sleep if you can. Tomorrow gets to be its own separate thing. I'm proud of you on the good days and exactly as proud on this one.

“Open when the halfway point arrives”

Halfway. Whatever the exact date turns out to be, you've done the harder part — the part where it was new and open-ended and you couldn't see the far end of it. From here the maths runs in your favour. I've started making a list of the ordinary things I want to do when you're back and it is embarrassingly boring: a Sunday, a walk, an argument about what to watch. That's the whole list. That's what I'm counting down to.

— Downhill from here.

“Open when you need something stupid”

No feelings in this one, as promised. Just this: I have been losing an ongoing war with the smoke alarm. It goes off when I make toast. Only toast. I have changed the battery twice and consulted the internet, which suggested I stop making toast. I have not stopped making toast. Come home and deal with it, because I refuse to be beaten by a device that costs eleven pounds.

“Open the week before you come home”

Nearly. I keep catching myself planning things and then putting them down, because I don't want to build the week up so much that it can't survive the reality of jet lag and laundry. So here's the plan: nothing. We do nothing for a bit. You sleep, I hover annoyingly, and neither of us has to be interesting for a few days. Everything else can wait until you're actually here.