Okay, I stumble a bit when I walk. I can't see very well. I'm not very steady. I fall sometimes. Recently I ended up in a massive altercation with a Tesco trolley on a travellator. The damned thing wouldn't come off, the back wheels reared up into the air and the whole thing crashed down on me.
I'm not a regular visitor to Tesco's. It's too big, and I'm exhausted just visiting an aisle or two. But Christmas is coming, I hadn't been out in ages, and I thought well, I'll make the effort. Now I'm sorry that I bothered.
To be honest, I don't like going out at all much any more. I am fed up with people crashing into me, then glaring as though it's my fault (I am the one with the stick after all). It didn't use to be like this. People would help me not so long ago. But things have changed. I am one of the 'other.' I have been demonised. And once you relegate people to the 'other' it's easy to dispose of them. Because you have already taken away their individuality, their worth as human beings.
I like to think I still have worth. I was a good mother, a good grandmother. A good mother-in-law... maybe not a very good daughter, but that's another story. I am still good at my job (though it gets harder and I have to become every more inventive in order to manage.) But today everything hurts. My arms hurt so much I can't even use my walking stick. It's too painful. And the dark evenings are a nightmare because my night vision is much worse this year than last year.
I have given up on my voice recognition software this evening. It is well and truly in a world of its own. When a walking stick becomes a 'working sick' I know it's time to go to bed....
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