Misery loathes company

Today was bad on several levels. Last night I felt thoroughly depressed and could barely sleep. My legs were aching and tingling and I couldn’t shut my mind off. What is it about being in a rotten, depressed mood that subconsciously begs strangers to attempt to engage you in conversation? I was sitting in a quasi-meditative state in my lecture this morning, which was very interesting but not enough to drag me out my 9am stupor, quietly appreciating what was being said but without actively participating. Apparently, however, the lecturer had other ideas. She was talking about racism as a social construct and she asked the crowd “what do you think that means? … Anybody … Anybody? … Come on guys, someone must have an opinion … What about you?” It was me. My first thought was “that it’s bullshit” but I managed to suppress the urge to speak my mind. I stumbled my way through an explanation. I groaned. “It’s way too early for this, but it means just that it’s constructed by society.” I realised that I had really just rephrased the question so I added “it’s not real”. She was happy with my answer and moved on. After the lecture she thanked me and said it was a good answer. I apologised for being less than enthusiastic and blamed it on an acute lack of caffeine.

After the lecture I had an appointment with the optometrist. He was a nice guy who was way too chatty for my liking. After each measurement he took he’d ask some factoid about my life. What are you studying? Does it take you long to get here from the mountain? What subjects are you doing? I did my best to dissuade him by giving barely monosyllabic answers and closing my eyes in between reading the second line from the bottom but he wouldn’t let up. Turns out I need new glasses. I did finally learn what “stigmatism” means in relation to eyes. So that was nice.

The last encounter was by far the weirdest but also the most positive. I was sitting in the chemist, by now a little less depressed but considerably more exhausted, when the old lady who was seated piped up “you’re very young to be walking with a walking stick, dear”. I hate it when people say things like this to me; not only is it stating the blatantly obvious but it’s a cruel reminded. I just smiled and said yes. We got chatting (or, should I say that she chatted and I grunted answers). She asked have you always had the stick? No. How long have you had it? A year and a half. Silence for a bit. Then she told me why she was there. She wanted to ask Bill, the pharmacist, about a throbbing vein in her forehead that she noticed this morning. She asked do you work? No, I’m at uni. What uni? Sydney.

“You’ll do well,” she said, “you have a kind face and intelligent eyes”. That made my day.