But you don't feel like other people

I’m writing this from my shed. Not metaphorically - literally a converted shed that I rent in Aberystwyth, where I’ve been largely alone since March. Eunice moved to the Valleys after finishing her masters in Leicester - to where my family are, to where I’m from - which made sense at the time but feels increasingly unbearable now. Video calls aren’t the same. Screens can’t replicate the simple presence of another person, the way they breathe, the small movements that let you know you’re not alone in the world.

I turn 27 in three weeks, which feels both significant and meaningless. There’s something about approaching your late twenties in isolation that makes you acutely aware of time passing. I’ve spent years being told that because of my Asperger’s, I don’t feel connections the way other people do, that social interaction isn’t as important to me. But this atomisation, this complete separation from other humans, is affecting me in ways I didn’t expect. Maybe the experts were wrong, or maybe I’m more human than they thought. I’m throwing myself into work - building a biobank management system, trying to create something useful - but as the death tolls climb every day, it feels increasingly pointless. My own pain feels selfish and small against the backdrop of such massive loss, yet it’s still there, gnawing away, reminding me that individual suffering doesn’t disappear just because greater suffering exists.

I just want it to be over.