DILEMMA

I stopped still on the pavement, closed my eyes, and placed the tips of my fingers on my forehead. I knew what it looked like. Nonetheless I stood there, the night breeze gently switching over my face. I had to imagine myself somewhere else for a moment. I closed off the tap, I glanced at myself in the mirror. I shut the door behind me. Was the light still on? Or had it just been earlier in the evening? Had I switched it on at all?

The memory trick wasn’t working. I opened my eyes. Nobody around, thankfully - just the lamplight and the rustling leaves.

This is the worst situation to decide what to do. It’s the oven-off-or-miss-the-train question all over again, isn’t it? Risk it? Leave it? Will it be alright? What are the consequences of the worst-case scenario? What’s the wise choice? And in a season of my life where I’m not sure I’m properly chemically balanced, it forced me to stand still like a robot in the middle of the street, unable to remember whether or not I’d left the lights on in the gents at church.

When I couldn’t remember if I’d left the oven on that morning, I ran back to check, and then missed my train. I picked being late and forfeiting a ticket, over a weekend of worrying about whether I’d accidentally burned down four people’s flats. It seemed logical. Though of course, had I risked it, everything would have been fine except for me trying not to think about it for 48 hours.

This time, I had to calculate logically whether it was worth walking all the way back when I was very nearly home. And my legs were aching and my eyes were heavy. Would there be enough to pull me in either direction?

Well, chemically unbalanced or not, my little Sherlock-act in the middle of the walk home, forced me into a decision.