My pen has been in the fridge for nine days

Nine days is nothing. Mine sat there through most of a wet August.

What shifted it for me was making it small and dull on purpose. I picked a day — Tuesday, because nothing happens on a Tuesday — and I decided that on Tuesday I would take the box out and put it on the kitchen table. That was the whole plan. Not inject. Just put the box on the table and leave it there while I did the washing up.

Did that twice. Third Tuesday I opened it. Fourth Tuesday I did it. It is now the least interesting part of my week and I mean that as high praise.

I am a farm vet. I inject living creatures for a living, several of which weigh more than my car and none of which have consented. I sat in my own kitchen for eight days unable to do it to myself.

So please do not add being illogical to the pile. Doing it to yourself is a different act entirely. Different hands, different everything.

The one bit of my day job that did transfer: hesitating is what makes it hurt. Slow approach, then commit. And do it somewhere you feel like a person, not standing at the bathroom sink at midnight.

Practical one from me. Take everything out of the box and set it on a plate on the counter — pen, wipes, the little sharps tub if you have one. Leave it there where you will walk past it. Not to shame yourself into it, genuinely just so your eye gets bored of it.

By day three mine had stopped being an object with a personality and become a thing on a plate next to the bananas. That was the day.

The bit about not having to have opinions yet — I felt that in my back teeth. I stayed in the maybe for two weeks and told myself I was being careful.

You will be allowed to have complicated opinions later, by the way. Half this room has them. It does not commit you to being cheerful about it.

Sceptic here, still on it, still sceptical, both can be true.

The reason I did mine was small and stupid: I did not want to have the same conversation with myself again the next morning. Not courage. Just being tired of my own internal committee.

I did it. Wednesday evening, kitchen table, Esi on the call talking about her allotment for four minutes and then saying, very mildly, oh, you have done it.

It was nothing. That is the honest report. It was nothing, and I sat there afterwards feeling faintly cheated of the drama I had been rehearsing for a fortnight. Thank you, all of you, including the person who told me to stop tidying the fridge.