I have pronounced my self fit and well enough to recommence my domestic duties.

I am fit and well. I have read and enjoyed an entire book from beginning to end (the first in 4 months); I am neither weaning off nor becoming accustomed to medication; my vocabulary has returned to me more or less intact; I can cuddle my children and I can even cook a meal and have everything ready at about the right time. My mood is as stable as the next woman’s. So why is it that at 00.45 on Monday morning, I am awake, tearful, with heart racing and breath so short I feel I might suffocate?

I am dreading the school run. I am dreading 30minutes of my morning – 25 of which will consist of nothing more arduous than the searching for more answers to an inquisitive 4-year-old’s “Why?”s and the occasional “Come on or we’ll be late” remonstration. So I am left with 5 ghastly minutes (if I time it right).

Those 5 minutes leave me utterly perplexed. I am a woman, who, in my previous corporate life could survive and engineer any social interaction, no matter how sticky or awkward to advantage. But in the playground the rules change, the gloves are off – there is no code of conduct (written or unwritten) that I understand.

Just how do I greet those people whom, once I have braved the enclave of the stares and whispers of the known gossip-mongers, I have not seen for weeks or months? The people who know I have been too ill to face the outdoors? The people who have been told to their kind “She knows my number” that I simply can’t call anyone? The people I have seen and who have said “We must do coffee” 6 weeks ago – and had the reply “I’d love to. Please let me know when would suit you: my diary is empty” and from whom I have heard nothing since?

How do I answer these people, these so called real-life friends, when they ask how I am and look at me meaningfully?

There are those who question my wisdom in putting my words to virtual paper – for all the world to see – but who else do I ask?

I just don’t know.