Space.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my having been made redundant from my previous job. No biggie, but I'm back in the city that I used to call home for 6 years. On the drive from the airport to my downtown hotel, I looked out at all the houses and condominiums and just longed and craved and missed one thing.

Space.

I never thought I would miss living in an 1,100-square feet apartment. Who would need so much space anyway? Give me something smaller, I used to say, and I'll be fine.

Well, I do have something smaller now. 623square feet on paper, but the actual space works out to be something like 480square feet. I think. And that's too small. Even my cats are going slightly stir crazy.

They're all boys and used to have their own corners and little domains but in my current apartment, there's way too much overlap, and it's stressing them out. For the past 2 weeks, I've come home from work to clumps of fur and pissed off growling and howling. It's stressing me out.

On some levels, I feel bad that I cannot give them more space to do their thing, and that kinda dovetails into my need for more space, I guess. It's odd. But maybe it's not that odd, given that most of my friends have 'proper-sized', grown-up apartments.

Things are going OK for me and I should remain positive and look at the bright side. Work's coming along fine, I'm doing OK health-wise and I'm slowly beginning to enjoy my new home.

But it's a bit hard to focus on all that when a good friend calls you to tell you that he tested positive for HIV. And then your mum calls to say that dad - who suffers from diabetes - has a swollen foot and is not responding to medication.

And in 2 days, I'm gonna be a bride's mate at a friend's wedding.

Intense.