She said "I really don't know what is going on inside your head and I honestly don't think you do either". As parting comments from ex-wives go that was a cracker. Insult me, throw things at me, hit me, but don't make me think about the contents of my head. It is gloriously chaotic in there and I've lasted this long haven't I?

I guess she was right. Never being very good at expressing myself or showing too much emmotion I have spent my life internalising everything, and only at times of great change have I thought I need to understand and know myself better. When my mother died of cancer I told myself to keep a diary, mark down every experience of everyday ....that lasted a week. In terms of knowing myself, lazy would be right up there in the list of keywords.

Yesterday was another great change. I said goodbye to my children, and I can't even begin to describe how I feel inside. Ok, maybe I'm making it sound too dramatic. I will be seeing them regularly and they have only moved 300 miles away, but they're not here anymore and I feel totally lost.

In a movie this would be cue for soft focus then a flashback, but where to go back to? Leaving a privilaged life in the country of my birth at the age of four with an uncle who I didn't really know, and his two sons?

The scene is set for an incredible triumph over adversity epic ..... Not really though.

There have been plenty of Hollywood moments and quite a few deserving of an Oscar, but I can't help feeling that I had a bit part in each scene and there were stronger people around me to carry the film. I could list them, but we'd be here forever.

How about a couple of honorary mentions then? A young trainee teacher whose life was turned upside down one night when a man showed up at her Stratford flat with three young boys in tow and told this was her new family.

I am proud to have call her Mum and deeply ashamed that I never said goodbye properly when she died of cancer. She is the person I should hold my life up against and compare. I'm too scared to do it now as I know that I fall far far short of the mark, and though I have been called 'suicidaly optimistic' I feel that I am never going to make the grade.

I am sorry I have let you down, but I am trying.

I recently took possession of my mother's hospital diaries. She was always one for writing down her thoughts, fears, expectations. The doctors had to remove her tongue due to throat cancer, so her diary was very much her everyday communiction tool.
"Not too many painkillers please doctor. I want to stay lucid."
"How much of my tongue are you going to take?"
"When I get out of here I am going to open a health food shop"
"Who will save my son from himself"

If only I had read that sooner then I might have got to the good bits of my life sooner and felt a lot better about what I have done in the past.

In the spirit of self confession and to banish laziness from my life I will use this as a tool, the diary I should have written 19 years ago. This is my first step to understanding myself, but as with everything else in my life I can't do it alone. Because of the medium and the access people have to it, I am compelled to see this through or forever be seen as a failure in the eyes of the world.

I am hoping to learn something on this journey of self discovery, but I don't know whether it will be good or bad.

Why the title Tempus Fugit? That's what my mother used to say to me.

"Tempus fugit, so don't waste any and enjoy every moment"