Tonight, I sat glued to the re-union episode of “This Life”, catching up with imaginary lives of imaginary people I’ve missed for 10 years. There was a school of thought back then that it showed exactly how EVERYONE lived, darling, and they could have been talking about ME. Rubbish, of course but it did capture how it felt to be 20-something in the 90-somethings.

10 years ago, I was 25 and sitting glued to the original series with the love of my life, planning the rest of our life together. Only she never was the love of my life, or I hers. She realised it long before me but later than we should have. She was the love of a fantasy life which I was never destined to live.

Not that it would have been a bad life – one of domestication and mild ambition and moderate happiness – and I might even have managed to cope with it.

Just wouldn’t have been This Life.

And This Life is so, so much better.