It was shining brightly with sunshine today - I was sat in the park wishing myself into an early grave. My winter misery had been augmented by the arrival of spring.
I spent the whole of the grey, drizzly Manchester wintertime feeling melancholic - with good reason.
Now that the sunshine is here, I have no reason, and it’s really galling. Men are waltzing around with no t-shirts on, women are hoiking up their strapless tops while running away from wasps and everyone is happily scampering around. It is awful.
To be honest, I was getting on for being suicidal. I can nay say better than most, yet nay saying isn’t welcome in this kind of weather, people think you’re a kill joy. So I turned it in on myself. I decided to give up. ‘I’ve had enough’ I thought. Still I have no money, no prospects, no job, no garden, no yacht, no nothing*. How can happiness exist in such a world as this? Life is one disappointment after the next and I’m done with it.
Well, I lay there on a wall, warming my back against the sun soaked stone. I tilted my head away from the glare of the sun and I saw a funny thing. There was a man in the distance hopping up and down one of the steps that lead to a walled garden. He’d step up and then step down, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Each time he took a step he looked all unbalanced. It looked like he had never come across steps before.
Then I realised what was going on. He had a gammy leg. Maybe he’d been in a car accident. Maybe he’d gotten attacked by a shark or fallen off a roof or been bitten by an angry dog. I wanted to go up to him and ask him “what’s going on with that leg and why are you hopping up and down that step in such a fashion” but I realised that, as I am no longer a five year old girl, it is not socially acceptable for me to ask such personal questions to a stranger in England.
I trailed off into deep thought on the matter. I wondered what had happened to him. Either way, it was clear that he was working hard on his recovery. With each step he struggled and wobbled, and he was clearly fighting through some kind of pain barrier. I can’t imagine he was doing it just for fun, he was doing it because it benefited him – maybe in six months time he will once again be able to get up the flight of stairs in his own home. I don’t know, he might live in a bungalow, but you see my point.
Well, this little serendipitous scene inspired me. I reflected upon my defeated, miserable attitude and I decided to go and see two friends and have a walk with them in the sunshine. And it was lovely.
