Amanda has brought me a steadiness I had never had.

I have now lived in this house, here in Derry, longer than I’ve lived anywhere since the ten years in Kilahora, Cork. Everywhere else was months, or a small number of years, one address after another. People ask me whether I like living in Derry, and I always give the same answer: I like living with Amanda.

And I do.

We have had our rows. We both carry issues up one arm and down the other, as most people do, and I have come round to thinking that this is not a flaw in a person but their substance — what makes everybody unique, and beautiful, and perfect in the substance of their imperfections.

And here’s the bald truth of it, which is the only reason this section exists.

I want to live as a woman. And I am afraid of what that would do to us.

That fear stops me in my tracks. As soon as I say it out loud or write it down, like now, I want to live as anything but a woman! It has frozen me out of life for longer than anything else on this list, longer than even shame.

The irony I keep turning over — and I do turn it over and over, most days — is that it is the steadiness of her love that gives me the ground to face any of of this. I can only walk backwards off the cliff because she’s standing behind me. Take away the thing I am frightened of losing and I would not have the nerve to lose it.

I realised something the other day about that cliff. The abyss is not a place to be dragged into. It is a place to step into on purpose, with something like joy, because there is nothing in it — and nothing is a blank canvas. That is why creating anything is so hard. You face the blank every time.

What I want is to love Amanda with all my true heart. My heart is the strong one; I have said that elsewhere. The difficulty is not the loving. It is the truth.