In 1979, Joan Didion shared her packing list for when she was called away on reporting stints. Mainly toiletries, it's admirably light overall, bar the typewriter she carries. Didion ends with her own analysis, imploring us to notice the intricate reasoning behind each item's inclusion, that this level of preparedness enables her to pack, without thinking. Bully for you, Joan.

We're moving. Not as soon as I'd like but we will. We're not going far, somewhere we've lived before. There's a lot to sort out before we can hand over the keys. I'm embarrassed by how much stuff we have. We meant this to be our last move, referring to this place using the mildly embarrassing modern phrase of "our forever home". We couldn't believe our luck, this grand old place ready to receive our TLC. It was a canvas, perfect for a pair of artists eager to make their mark, then live their days out in the final result. We really bedded in, doing what we could to take up all this space we'd managed to get, giddily filling it with furniture, ornaments, devices, not knowing what the space already held.

Sorting through these piles, I can remember a person who thought each thing was necessary, who thought it would make her life better, easier. More beautiful. I tut at her as I put more of her possessions into boxes. She didn't just buy everything in - oh, no - she came loaded with plenty of baggage. She was given so much - birthday gifts, misguided fashion, personal effects of an entire branch of her family tree. The only thing she doesn't seem to own is my hindsight. I can't get through to her to help me figure out what to keep, if anything.

After our first couple of months in the house, we hadn't seen any ghosts. We took this lack of sightings to mean that the previous inhabitants approved of us, that we had dodged a curse, not realising that the house was gearing up to haunt us instead, unleashing an endless stream of issues from years of neglect. I would tell myself that the deep fatigue and sickness I felt with disappointing regularity was just down to the stress of this project. But the house and my body - my painful, exhausted body, crackling like radio static - deteriorated almost at the same rate.

I struggled with everything, especially accepting that I was struggling. I poured what energy I had into scanning for the right frequency of attention and action to get through the day, my day, days that I'd planned out in list after list. I never did manage it. And I couldn't write, I could barely think. I could cry, so that's what I did. The house surrounded me on all sides, taunting me with how unfinished it was, how wretched we both were. Our staring contests were all draws.

It should be clear, writes Didion, that this was a list made by someone who prized control, yearned after momentum, someone determined to play her role as if she had the script, heard her cues, knew the narrative.

Having been given the best medical care anyone could ask for, I have been officially discharged. So I'm better, I keep telling myself and everyone else. I'm better and I'm reeling. We can't afford this house, financially or emotionally, but we've done what we can to fix it. I still can't get hold of her, that other person with all the stuff, to tell her we're leaving, but I can't shake a sense of returning, either. I'm invested in progress as a helpful fiction but that's where it stops. The house wasn't well and neither was I. That's the story, not the end. I can move but I can't leave these entwined afflictions here, neatly packed into this box you're reading.

Writing forces you to think, said Didion, several decades on from sharing her packing list. It does, Joan, it does, and that's why I haven't been able to do it for so long. But writing is wilder than thinking, and that's why I have to do it to stay alive. I can see you, Joan, walking through the airport on your way to another job, prescriptions packed, carrying your typewriter, its infant weight in your bare hands, because you have absolutely no choice in the matter.

You're taking it with you.